Abstract

                                Plant breeding is actively concerned with the so-called improvement of Agricultural Crops. Vavilov defined Plant Breeding as an art, a science and a branch of agricultural practice. He was of opinion that a knowledge of genetics was not indispensable to a breeder; that evolutionary practices permeate the whole science of breeding and that in effect breeding was man's interference in the morphological formation of animals and plants. In other words it is evolution directed by the will of man. But breeding and genetics interpenetrate since they treat heredity and variation. The modern genetics and cytology again interpenetrate. Thus the new line of study Cytogenetics has sprung up. The modern plant breeding has to a large extent ceased to be an art. With cognate sciences it has attained a high complexity and become more exact. Cytogenetics though recent has grown so rapidly and has covered such a large number of cultivated species that it is well nigh impossible to summarise all knowledge in a short paper. Therefore in this paper are presented some of the trends in plant breeding.

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