Meet stresses need for new plant breeding techniques

The symposium on trait improvement of rice through emerging technologies, held at KAU main campus, Vellanikkara, on Monday stressed the need for effective development and responsible use of new plant breeding technologies.

The symposium, jointly organised by the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) and the SciGenome Research Foundation, was inaugurated by KAU Vice-Chancellor Dr R. Chandra Babu.

Dr Chandra Babu said the need to disseminate information on emerging genome-assisted breeding for crop improvement and enable capacity building in their discriminate use had become imperative.

“Socio economic development depends on sustainable agricultural production, and rise in farmers’ income is the key to poverty eradication. The twin elements of food safety and nutritional security need crops with better productivity, quality and resistance to pests and diseases. The relevance of genomic editing and other tools linked with it offer much promise,” he said.

Genome manipulation

Dr Ramesh V. Sonti, Director, National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi, in his key note address said new set of tools with unprecedented capabilities for genome manipulation were becoming available for crop improvement and a judicial use of such tools were necessary to enhance productivity. Explaining about the sequential development of improved variety of Samba Mashuri, Dr. Sonti said that identifying appropriate gene from vast pathogenic variability was the key to effective molecular breeding for biotic stress management in rice.

Dr. A.K .Singh, Head, Department of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, said a novel recessive gene for bacterial blight resistance had been mapped and it would pave the way for better cultivars resistant to the disease. “The impact of pesticide residues in grains on export makes it imperative to induce disease tolerance through introgression of disease resistance genes,” he said.