Centre of Excellence in Molecular Breeding

RationaleConstant depletion of natural resources has placed the onus on the plant scientists to sustain the agricultural productivity by evolution of resource use efficient crop cultivars for the future. Agriculture will not be allotted with same proportion of fresh water in future and agricultural crops will have to bear a virtue of drought resistance in them. Reduced watering will bring in other added stress factors such as salinization and heat stress. Changing global climate brings in unexpected patterns of pests and diseases affecting the agricultural production. However the raising global population would demand more food. Keeping in mind of these factors, Government of TamilNadu sanctioned a Centre of Excellence in Molecular Breeding (CEMB) as per the TN Govt G.O. Ms. No.92, Agriculture (AU) Department dt 07.04.2015. This centre will focus on exploiting the cutting edge science of molecular breeding to develop new varieties. Gene based SNP markers will be developed for multiple stress resistance and nutritional quality and an array based selection will be taken up which will result in new cultivars of cereals and vegetables in the long term. Upscaling the method and volume of crop improvement by identifying novel genes for the traits of agronomic importance, nutritional value and the resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and introgressing them into elite genotypes of major agricultural and horticultural crops would be major activities.

Background

• Molecular marker technology and marker assisted breeding are major tools to augment plant breeders to come with improved varieties in shorter period

• For evolution of resource use efficient crop cultivars to suit the changing climate and farmingsystems, classical plant breeding needs to be supplemented with precision DNA marker based selection

• Establishment of Centre of Excellence in Molecular Breeding with a high throughput genotyping and phenotyping platforms in TNAU will definitely pave ways to excellence in evolving new crop varieties

• CEMB will remain as centralized facility for crop improvement in marker analysis, capacity building and executing the post doctoral research in the niche areas of plant molecular breeding