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    Newsletter: Plant Mutation Breeding

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    Gabby
    Plant mutation breeding is a process that uses radiation like gamma rays and x-rays to induce mutations in crops, mimicking natural mutations. This allows for more diverse and stronger crops to be bred faster than through traditional methods. Mutation breeding has advantages like improving disease resistance and eliminating unwanted traits, but has disadvantages like a low frequency of desired mutations and potential undesirable side effects. The IAEA and FAO work together to develop mutation breeding technologies to accelerate crop improvement.

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    Newsletter: Plant Mutation Breeding

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    Gabby
    39 views3 pages
    Plant mutation breeding is a process that uses radiation like gamma rays and x-rays to induce mutations in crops, mimicking natural mutations. This allows for more diverse and stronger crops to be bred faster than through traditional methods. Mutation breeding has advantages like improving disease resistance and eliminating unwanted traits, but has disadvantages like a low frequency of desired mutations and potential undesirable side effects. The IAEA and FAO work together to develop mutation breeding technologies to accelerate crop improvement.

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    Plant mutation breeding is a process that uses radiation like gamma rays and x-rays to induce mutations in crops, mimicking natural mutations. This allows for more diverse and stronger crops to be bred faster than through traditional methods. Mutation breeding has advantages like improving disease resistance and eliminating unwanted traits, but has disadvantages like a low frequency of desired mutations and potential undesirable side effects. The IAEA and FAO work together to develop mutation breeding technologies to accelerate crop improvement.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    39 views3 pages

    Newsletter: Plant Mutation Breeding

    Uploaded by

    Gabby
    Plant mutation breeding is a process that uses radiation like gamma rays and x-rays to induce mutations in crops, mimicking natural mutations. This allows for more diverse and stronger crops to be bred faster than through traditional methods. Mutation breeding has advantages like improving disease resistance and eliminating unwanted traits, but has disadvantages like a low frequency of desired mutations and potential undesirable side effects. The IAEA and FAO work together to develop mutation breeding technologies to accelerate crop improvement.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Gabby Rodriguez

    NEWSLETTER
    November 04, 2016

    Plant Mutation Breeding

    What is it?
    Plant Mutation Breeding has been around since the 1930s and is a major part in modern day
    agriculture. Mutation breeding is a process that mimics the natural spontaneous mutation in crops. It
    is a much faster way to “evolve” a crop into the perfect crop. There are a few processes that can be
    used. Classical breeding which is basically eliminating undesired plants so mutated plants have a
    bigger population. Cross breeding is when two closely related crops are bred to create a new crop. The
    one that will be most addressed today is the use of gamma irradiation and x-rays to speed up the
    mutation process

    Gamma Irradiation and X-rays

    1
    Gamma irradiation (aka Cold Process) is a form of sterilization because it kills bacteria by breaking
    down bacterial DNA. It is suitable for heat sensitive items. Gamma rays pass through equipment to
    disrupt contaminating pathogens. Gamma irradiation doesn’t create residuals. Gamma rays have high
    penetration power, is suitable for all types of materials, and are easily controlled.

    X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation that has high energy and can pass through most
    objects. The X-ray is most commonly associated with medical uses. An X-ray produces a stream of
    electromagnetic radiation that interacts with an anode in an x-ray tube and comes back with an
    image.

    Why Mutation Breeding?


    Mutation breeding using gamma rays are the fastest way to ensure a mutation in a crop. Generally,
    spontaneous mutations expand crop diversity. Mutation breeding allows for quicker expansion and an
    even more diverse selection. This process also allows plants to evolve into stronger, bigger, more
    resistant crops. Being able to select characteristics is very efficient especially now because plants can
    become resilient to climate change. Characteristics like that have an increased chance of generating
    faster than spontaneous mutations.

    Advantages and Disadvantages


    There are many advantages to plant mutation breeding. First off, it’s used for both oligogenic and
    polygenic traits. It also improves disease resistance so there are less crops that are dying and more
    healthy ones which allows population of the plant to keep growing so that in the end, there is more
    produce. As an addition to improving disease resistance, unwanted characteristics can be eliminated
    as well. So not only is there less diseases, there are less things that could lead to disease or
    characteristics that could lead to less produce being bought.

    However, with every good thing comes a bad one. There are a few disadvantages mutation breeding
    has. One of the biggest issues is the frequency of a desired mutation can be very low. This can be
    because of the recessive nature the mutations have. In order for it to show, it has to overpower the
    dominant trait, and a good amount of times it does not. If the mutation is a success, it could have
    some undesirable side-effects. Also, the breeder has to screen large populations of a specific crop in
    order to even find a wanted mutation.

    IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)

    2
    The IAEA and FAO work together on mutation breeding. They help develop and implement
    technologies that can induce the mutation of plants and significantly speed up the breeding process.

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