Preface -- Major Paradigm Shifts in Potato Breeding -- A Rapid Disease Resistance Breeding in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) -- Improvement of Onion through Accelerated Approaches -- Rapid Methods for Onion Breeding -- Accelerated Improvement of Cole Vegetable Crops -- Marker Assisted Selection in Pea Breeding -- Efficient Methods for the Improvement of Temperate Root Vegetables -- Rapid Methods of Improvement in Brinjal -- Conventional and Contemporary Approaches to Enhance Efficiency in Breeding Chilli/Hot Pepper -- Accelerated Breeding in Cucumber Using Genomic Approaches -- Advances in Improvement of Pumpkin and Squashes -- Accelerated Breeding in Okra -- New Initiatives in Quick Bitter Guard Breeding -- Principles and Techniques for Rapid Improvement of Muskmelon for Yield, Fruit Quality and Resistance to Biotic Stresses -- Accelerated Breeding of Cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] for Improved Yield and Pest Resistance -- Recent Trends in Sweet Pepper Breeding -- Index.

Plant improvement has shifted its focus from yield, quality and disease resistance to factors that will enhance commerical export, such as early maturity, shelf life and better processing quality. Conventional plant breeding methods aiming at the improvement of a self-pollinating crop, such as wheat, usually take 10-12 years to develop and release of the new variety. During the past 10 years, significant advances have been made and accelerated methods have been developed for precision breeding and early release of crop varieties. The proposed two-volume work summarizes concepts dealing with germplasm enhancement and development of improved varieties based on innovative methodologies that include doubled haploidy, marker assisted selection, marker assisted background selection, genetic mapping, genomic selection, high-throughput genotyping, high-throughput phenotyping, mutation breeding, reverse breeding, transgenic breeding, shuttle breeding, speed breeding, low cost high-throughput field phenotyping, etc. It will be an important reference with special focus on accelerated development of improved crop varieties.