Concise Encyclopedia of Crop Improvement: Institutions, Persons, Theories, Methods, and Histories / Edition 1

by Rolf Schlegel

Overview

How were today’s complex approaches to improving crops developed?

The quest for a steady food supply sparked plant breeding attempts over 12,000 years ago. The Concise Encyclopedia of Crop Improvement is a comprehensive resource explaining the development of crop improvement methods over the centuries. This extensive history of development is examined in detail, including influential individuals in the field, plant cultivation in Asia since the Neolithic time, techniques used in the Old World, and cropping in ancient America. The advance of scientific plant breeding in the twentieth century is extensively explored, including hybrid breeding, biotechnological improvement, and genetic manipulation.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Crop Improvement focuses on the full range of social and scientific advances in crop development. This concise yet detailed overview discusses leaders in the field, theories, achievements, disputes, and institutions that were crucial in the evolution of crop improvement, breeding, and plant genetics. Individual chapters discuss crop improvement within a specific time frame or geographic area as well as providing separate sections describing specific types or advances of breeding or scientific method. Numerous helpful tables, figures, and photos are included for idea clarity and illustration, and include comprehensive references.

Topics in the Concise Encyclopedia of Crop Improvement include:

• plant breeding development over the past 10,000 years
  
• Arabic agriculture
  
• Medieval and Renaissance agriculture in Europe
  
• Mendel’s laws—the beginning of genetic research
  
• breeding by selection
  
• pure lines and improvement of self-pollinated crops
  
• positive and negative mass selection
  
• backcross breeding
  
• synthetics
  
• mutation breeding
  
• induced mutation

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560221463
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/24/2007
Series:	Crop Science Series
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Schlegel, Rolf

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• User’s Guide
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Crop Improvement Since 10,000 Years
• 2.1. The Old World
• 2.1.1. Sumeria
• 2.1.2. Mesopotamia and Babylonia
• 2.1.3. Judea
• 2.1.4. Egypt
• 2.2. Plant Cultivation in Asia Since Neolithic Times
• 2.2.1. China
• 2.2.2. India
• 2.3. Cropping Plants in Ancient America
• 2.4. The Greek and Roman World
• 2.5. Arabic Agriculture
• 2.6. Medieval and Renaissance Agriculture in Europe
• 2.7. Plant Breeding by Experience During the 17th through 19th Centuries
• 2.8 Interest
• Chapter 3. MENDEL’S Contribution to Inheritance and Breeding
• 3.1. Rediscovery of Mendel’s Laws—Beginning of Genetic Research
• 3.2. Scientific Plant Breeding with the Beginning of the 20th Century
• 3.2.1. Breeding by Selection
• 3.2.2. Cross and Combination Breeding
• 3.2.3. Pure Lines and Improvement of Self-Pollinated Crops
• 3.2.4. Positive and Negative Mass Selection
• 3.2.5. Pedigree Selection
• 3.2.6. Bulk Selection
• 3.2.7. Backcross Breeding
• 3.2.8. Single-Seed Decent
• 3.2.9. Near-Isogenic Lines As a Breeding Tool
• 3.2.10. Polycross Method
• 3.2.11. Shuttle Breeding
• 3.3. Resistance Breeding
• 3.4. Hybrid Breeding
• 3.4.1. Synthetics
• 3.5. Mutation Breeding
• 3.5.1. Induced Mutation by Mutagens
• 3.5.2. Somaclonal Variation by In Vitro Culture
• 3.6. Polyploidy and Breeding
• 3.7. Chromosome Manipulations As a Tool for Breeding and Research
• 3.7.1. Aneuploids
• 3.7.2. Chromosome Additions
• 3.7.3. Chromosome Substitutions and Translocations
• 3.7.4. Chromosome-Mediated Gene Transfer

What People are Saying About This

Calvin O. Qualset

Professor Schlegel has done a great service by assembling voluminous data on historical aspects of crop development. His treatment calls attention to the evolution of methods for plant breeding as well as many of the scientific advances that support science-based plant breeding. 'Schlegel's list' of notables over the past 200 years is fascinating. It is a fair sampling of key developers of plant breeding. I ENJOYED EVERY CHAPTER AND RECOMMEND THE BOOK to students, teachers, breeders, anthropologists, geneticists, and anyone interested the development of historical and future aspects of agriculture. (Calvin O. Qualset, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Davis, CA)

P. Stephen Baenziger

A CONCISE HISTORY OF CROP DEVELOPMENT. . . . A HANDY REFERENCE for knowing our past and understanding our present times. It is written by one of the few modern scientists who has lived with and met many of the people in his book or those who knew them. He has done us a great service by writing this concise history before it is lost in the momentum of the ever expanding current research in plant breeding. One notable aspect of this book is that it is written from a European perspective, hence is particularly valuable for American readers, like myself, who are well versed in our traditions, but have not always seen how global science interacts. (P. Stephen Baenziger, PhD, Eugene W. Price Distinguished Professor, University of Nebraska - Lincoln)