Question

Define plant introduction and acclimatization.

Answer 1

Hint: Both of these are methods of crop improvements and as the name indicates of plant introduction it can be defined that way and acclimatization is similar to natural selection.

Complete answer:
Both of these are the easiest and quickest method of crop improvement. Let's start with the Plant introduction.
Plant introduction is defined as a process of introducing plants in the new locality from their own growing locality which may involve wild or totally new variety of crops for the area or you can say a genotype or the group of genotypes are introduced.

Plant introduction is divided into two categories-
> Primary introduction: In this method, the genotype is changed only if the introduced variety is not suitable to the new environment. But if it's suitable then there is no change in the genotype and then the introduced variety is released for commercial cultivation. Examples are- dwarf wheat varieties and dwarf rice varieties.

> Secondary introduction: In this method, the introduced variety goes under selection process in order to get the superior variety for them. Sometimes in order to transfer some characters from the local variety, it may undergo hybridisation with the local variety. This process is known as Secondary introduction. Examples are kalyan sona and sonalika of wheat.

Acclimatization is defined as a process which is the ability of the crop to adapt according to the new climatic conditions for successive generations. It is a kind of Natural selection where those crops who will adapt according to the environment will be selected. This process increase the frequency of those genotypes which are better adapted to the environment and it depends on three factors
- Breeding system
- Genetic variation
- Duration of the crop
The success of this process depends on place effect and the selection of new genotypes.

Note: Plant introduction is based on its name as it is introducing new plants in the new environment from their own growing one. Acclimatization is a process in which the crops which can adapt according to the new environment will be selected by nature. It is a kind of natural selection.