Question

What does the variety improvement of crops aim at?

Answer 1

Hint: As human beings do not produce their own food like plants, thus they are dependent on plants for food. The food we eat keeps us healthy and provides energy to carry out daily activities. Although, the increasing population demands for surplus crops, shelter, etc. Various techniques have been introduced to improve the production of crops to meet the required need of food.

Complete answer:
Food crops contribute to the world’s major food supply. It includes grains, seeds, nuts, herbs, legumes, etc. As the population is increasing every day, the resources are becoming limited. Therefore, to increase the crop production and to improve the variety of crops different methods are opted, which will be discussed below.
Methods of crop variety improvement:
> Hybridization: it is the crossing between genetically dissimilar plants to obtain plants having useful characteristics. Further, it is of three types, intervarietal (between different varieties), interspecific (between different species of same genus), and intergeneric (between different genera).
> Gene Incorporation: this method includes inserting foreign genes in a species to get desired traits.
Aims of crop variety improvement:
> To increase the yield of crops.
> To improve the quality of crops.
> To produce disease resistant plants.
> To shorten the duration of the crops from sowing to harvesting.
> To increase the tolerance of plants and making them more adaptable to changing environments.

Note:
Bt crops are successful production of quality crops by crop improvement methods. These are transgenic crops that are genetically modified from DNA of bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. There are two types of Bt crops yet, Bt brinjal and Bt cotton. The Bt gene protects the plants from pests.