Introduction to Plant Breeding -- Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture -- Inbred Development -- Population Improvement -- Heterosis and Inter-Specific Hybridization -- Mutations and Epigenetics -- Genetic Engineering and Transgenic Breeding -- DNA Sequencing, other Omics and Synthetic Biology -- Breeding Self-fertilizing Plants: From Inbred to Hybrid Cultivars -- Breeding Open Pollinated, Hybrid and Transgenic Outcrossing Species -- Polyploidy and Plant Breeding -- Seeds, Clones and Perennials -- Diversity, Intellectual Property and Plant Variety Protection.

This book provides analysis of plant breeding and its role for producing high-yielding cultivars that increase farming profitability and sustainability. This workÂ{u1BA1}lyzesÂ{u4A25} past and present of plant breeding,Â{u7A29}le providing research that investigates the future of crop improvement. Plant breeding today, as it was before, depends on crop biodiversity and its sustainable use, which can be further facilitated by advances in omics and bioinformatics. It starts with assessing plant genetic resources (wild species, landraces, obsolete cultivars, genetic stocks) variation aiming to enhance the cultigen pool. Research on geneticsâ€{u1A64}ed by current omic toolsâ€{u0CE8}ould lead to designing a knowledge-based plant breeding, which could bring further genetic gains in the breeding pools. Plant breeding, however, will increasingly require pursuing a holistic interdisciplinary approach based on integrated system-oriented thinking.