Mutation Breeding
Genetic variation is important for plant breeders to increase its productivity. Being an introduced crop species in Malaysia, there is a limited number of germplasm accessions available for breeding. Furthermore, conventional hybridization is difficult to carry out in roselle due to its cleistogamous nature of reproduction. Because of this, a mutation breeding programme was initiated to generate new genetic variability. The use of induced mutations for its improvement was initiated in 1999 in cooperation with MINT (now called Malaysian Nuclear Agency), and has produced some promising breeding lines. Roselle is a tetraploid species; thus, segregating populations require longer time to achieve fixation as compared to diploid species. In April 2009, UKM launched three new varieties named UKMR-1, UKMR-2 and UKMR-3, respectively. These three new varieties were developed using variety Arab as the parent variety in a mutation breeding programme which started in 2006.
Read more about this topic: Roselle (plant), Crop Research
Famous quotes containing the word breeding:
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—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)