Plant Breeding
Beginning of paper
Mankind has selectively bred plants for thousands of years with the
aim of improving their quality. Experimenting with cereal crops, breeders
have aimed to enhance their yield of grain, the quality of their flour, and
their resistance to disease and drought. With other plants, breeders have
tried ....
Middle of paper
.... 1970 the vast
majority of 67 million acres was planted with the hybrid variety, yielding
twice as much corn.
Plant breeders have a definite advantage over animal breeders, because
they can often produce fertile varieties - indeed, new species - by
crossbreeding between species. This is because hybrids are often polypoid.
Polyploidy, as we know, can occur naturally in the wild. Some species of
cotton that we grow are polypodies that probably arose originally by
accidental crosses betwee ....
------------------
Word count: 622
Page count: 3 (approximately 250 words per page)
