ABSTRACT
Breeding technologies are critical for improving crop production in our changing world with an exponentially growing population and in the face of extreme environmental changes (Tester and Langridge 2010). The development of molecular biology and later of “omics” sciences and bioinformatics has offered substantial opportunities for enhancing the effectiveness of classical plant breeding programs. Molecular and bioinformatic tools can either be integrated into traditional breeding schemes to effi ciently analyze large numbers of traits and crosses during the early seedling stage, or to generate new breeding schemes and programs previously not feasible. Through these approaches and tools, both the phenotype (observable identity of an individual) and the genotype (genetic identity of an individual) of new varieties can be analyzed to predict the
performance of novel introgressed traits. This new paradigm describes the intention of “Molecular Breeding”, often termed “marker-assisted selection (MAS)”.
