SOME FACTS ABOUT PLANT BREEDING BEFORE THE

DISCOVERY OF MENDELISM

GP 605: Advanced plant breeding systems (2+0)

Presented By

Ekatpure Sachin ChandrakantPhD Research Scholar

Department of Plant Biotechnology

Introduction In 1965 all over the world the fact was memorize that

MENDEL published the results of his classic genetic experiments with garden peas

His interpretation of these experiments immortalized MENDEL as the founder of exact genetics

After this memorize and without minimizing in the least MENDEL's importance and that of his "rediscovery's",

Plant breeding before the discovery of MENDEL's work for even long before 1900 much valuable work has been done

Rough outline of plant breeding

Looking for and/or creating idiotypical variability

Making combinations in this variability

Selecting in this variability

Giving "the right finish" to the selected material resulting into a variety

Maintaining and propagating the material when once a variety is established

THE REMOTE PAST When man no longer gathered plants or plant parts then

he started to grow useful plants

Human selection pressure and natural selection pressure on populations of plants has been developed to grow useful plants

At one moment man started to select most suitable plants

Discarding those which looked less suitable for propagation

This attempt was made before the start of recorded history

At Roman timesVIRGIL (70-19 B.C.)- A permanent selection is required if a

certain cereal variety is not to deteriorate

the selected material served as a base on which a variety was further built up

The obtained variety will subsequently have been maintained

COLUMELLA (1st century A.C .)- Describes how to select plants from vines

which should be kept for propagation

At Roman times cont… As appears from both prehistoric

finds and written records,

ages ago man started

To pick out favorable phenotypes from the spontaneously present or developing variability to use them for propagation purposes

At Roman times cont…

BOCK in 1546: The co-existence of a spinach variety with prick less fruits

("round seed") and one with prickly fruits ("sharp seed")

first half of the seventeenth century tulips were obtained from spontaneously formed seed

The flowers showed a wide range of colors

In Turkey this method of producing new varieties has probably been applied even earlier

in the seventeenth century people in France were familiar with varieties of cabbage lettuce

The Eighteenth CenturyH. F. ROBERTS The knowledge of sex in plants expanded and the first intentional

crosses were made

THOMAS FAIRCHILD crossed two species within the genus Dianthus

In the second half of the century the work and school of LINNAEUS came much to the fore in many a branch of botanical science and binomial systems of classification of plants has been developed

CAMERARIUS discovered, sex in plants whereas

KOELREUTER was the first to apply CAMERARIUS' finds in scientifically orientated investigations .

KOELREUTER’s findings Study of pollen, pollination and fertilization

Many crosses, mainly made between species, while he noted that only crosses between related species would generally be successful

The discovery of the occurrence of sterility in the F1 of specific crosses

The observation of the similarity between the reciprocal cross and the original one, at least in most cases

The ascertainment of the phenomenon that the results of continued self-fertilization of successive generations of hybrids include types which closely resemble the parents

The discovery of the possibility that certain characteristics of one of the parents are dominant in Fl plants, others being intermediary inherited

The observation that F1 plants sometimes exceeded the best parents in growing power.

KOELREUTER’s findings cont… KOELREUTER'S work marked the

importance of crossing for plant breeding

So people were engaged in plant breeding as early as the second part of the eighteenth century

Unfortunately KOELREUTER'S work did not receive the attention it deserved

THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19th CENTURY

Great advances in plant breeding marked the first half of the 19th century

Thomas Andrew Knight who purposely tried to obtain better varieties by crossing various cultivated crops

He discovered in 1823 that the crosses of Pea white flower x purple flower yielded a purple Fl

Patrick Shirreff began to breed wheat and oats in Scotland

The first crosses in potatoes were carried out in the first part of the nineteenth century

THE SECOND PART OF THE 19TH CENTURY

In plant breeding very much progress was made in the second part of the nineteenth century

In this period MENDEL published his famous work

Kl. De Vries who began to cross potatoes by the end of last century

Hugo De Vries published the book on "Plant Breeding" in 1907

It may serve as a good starting point in the history of plant breeding

Thank You