Question

The new varieties of plants produced by?
A) introduction and mutation
B) selection and introduction
C)selection and hybridization
D) mutation and selection.

Answer 1

Hint: Plant breeding is the purposeful manipulation of plant species to create desired plant types that are better suited for cultivation, give better yields, and are disease resistant. Conventional plant breeding has been practiced for thousands of years, since the beginning of human civilization.

Complete step-by-step answer:
The new plant varieties are produced by selection and hybridization. Hybridization means the crossing of two varieties that have desired genes that gives useful characteristics of both to the progeny. Whereas selection is the process that is not random and leads to representing individuals of different genotypes unequally in the progeny in later generations by self-propagating units.
The main steps in breeding a new genetic variety of crop are-
1) collection of variability: collection and preservation of all the different wild varieties, species, and relatives of the cultivated species is a pre-requisite for effective exploitation of natural genes available in populations.
2) Evaluation of selected parents: The germplasm is evaluated to identify plants with a desirable combination of characters. The selected plants are multiplied and used in the process of hybridization.
3) Cross hybridization among the selected parents: The desired characters have very often to be combined from two different plants.
4) Selection and testing of superior recombinants: This step consists of selecting, among the progeny of the hybrids, those plants that have desired character combination.
5) Testing, release, and commercialization of new cultivators.
Therefore the correct answer is option C.

Note: India is mainly an agricultural country. Agriculture accounts for approximately 33 percent of India’s GDP and employs nearly 62 percent of the population. After India’s independence, one of the main challenges facing the country was that of producing enough food for the increasing population.