ABSTRACT
For millennia we have selected plants to be more adapted to our needs, environments, and markets. These efforts were very much an art form. Roughly a century ago, Mendel’s rediscovered pea experiments gave us an understanding of basic genetic principles and moved plant breeding from a qualitative ‘art’ towards a more quantitative science. Through most of the twentieth century, however, plant breeders heavily depended on their qualitative art skills for selection of the desired phenotype. The plethora of genes and alleles in their myriad of possible combinations mixed with environmental interactions has required a high degree of art, experience, and science to develop the most current ‘elite cultivar’ for the changing, competitive markets of today. No doubt, even without the more recent molecular tools, improvements in cultivars would continue through traditional, science/art based plant breeding methods because of the ubiquitous number of genes to reshuffle. However, most contemporary plant breeders are, to some extent, using molecular markers as aids to produce their newest, elite cultivar.
