Print This PagePlant Breeding
What is plant breeding?
Plant breeding has been practiced by farmers for thousands of years and has become increasingly science-based in the past 100 years. Plant breeding is the act of bringing together two specific parent plants to produce a new “offspring” plant. This “cross,” as plant breeders call it, creates a new plant that will contain a mixture of the characteristics of its parents – much like children have a combination of both their parents’ characteristics.
For example, when breeding for improved crop production, the parents are selected because they possess characteristics desirable to farmers, such as grain size, stalk strength, or better tolerance to heat and drought. The offspring are tested under various conditions to determine which has the superior combination of desired attributes. Further improvements are made by mating and continuing selection of superior offspring through several generations.
Today, breeders use a mixture of classic techniques and modern computer- and technology-assisted processes to help select and breed the plants faster and with greater accuracy than ever before. The end result is better seeds and plants that allow farmers to get more production from their fields.
Why is plant breeding important to the agriculture industry?
Plant breeding allows researchers to identify plants with the most favorable combination of desired characteristics to serve as a foundation for biotech traits. Just as a contractor does not build a house without a solid foundation, scientists do not create biotech products without a healthy, genetically superior plant developed through breeding.
Historically, plant breeding has been one of the most important sources of global crop production improvement. And since their introduction in 1996, biotechnology traits have added more to the yield increases breeding has contributed over the years – and will continue to do in the future.
Increasing global population and incomes will double demand for agricultural production by 2050. This reality makes it imperative to unite the unique functions of plant breeding and biotechnology to produce more with less.
Monsanto’s Competitive Advantage
Monsanto has assembled a pool of elite seed genetics, known as germplasm, from geographies around the world. The company applies its cutting-edge marker-assisted breeding to this geographically diverse germplasm base. Marker-assisted breeding allows scientists to track and select the most effective combination of genes, resulting in the highest quality products. Supported by a world-class information technology system that processes tens of millions of data points, the combination of marker-assisted breeding and global germplasm allows Monsanto to put the best seeds in farmers’ hands sooner.
