ABSTRACT
Crop production is highly vulnerable under the unprecedented climate changes that have led to heavy crop yield loss, and is a serious concern worldwide. Environmental extremes such as high and low temperatures, insufcient water supply, salinity, heavy metals, radiation, high and low nutrient content in the soil, etc., are the consequences of a rapidly changing climate, wreaking havoc on crop yield and productivity. Despite rapid advancements in techniques and research strategies, few crops are suitable for the changing climate, which will account for 15% to 32% of the yield reduction in the next 50 years, a situation that is just the reverse of what we actually need. Thus, there is an urgent need to accelerate our research efforts to develop new cultivars both by widening the genetic base of the available germplasm as well as by improving existing cultivars through integrated breeding approaches. However, “genomics” is considered to be an important component of integrated breeding approaches as the development of advanced molecular markers requires prior knowledge of genome sequences. Therefore, the application of “omics” techniques for the varietal improvement of plants demands sequenced genomes, so much so that it
CONTENTS
14.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................347 14.2 A Brief Account of the Different High-Throughput Sequencing Platforms .............348 14.3 Applications ........................................................................................................................349
