THE Department of Agriculture (DA) Biotechnology Program said biotechnology tools help facilitate the entire process of plant varietal selection and development in the quest for superior crops by dramatically increasing the efficiency of selection, and reducing the time and resources needed to achieve the desired results.
DA Biotechnology Program Office Director Antonio Alfonso said breeders typically produce large populations from individual crosses to increase the chance of finding a few individual plants possessing complementary traits from the male and female parents.
He said that following sexual hybridization, a major bottleneck is the long and tedious process of plant selection to identify a few superior plants from the rest of the population. “This is done repeatedly for several generations until such time that a few uniform and stable populations are produced. Confirmatory and additional tests are conducted before new varieties are released. Altogether, this process takes from eight to 11 years,” Alfonso said.
He said DNA markers associated with important traits allow indirect selection for a certain trait.
“For example, breeders can already select plants with specific grain quality traits even before they actually produce grains. DNA samples taken from the leaves of young seedlings provide information necessary for the breeders to make the crucial decision,” he added.