The Importance Of Genetic Diversity

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1. Introduction
Crop improvement has a long hystory over thousands of years ago and has been known since the domestication of crops (Rashid et al., 2011). Crop improvement is the most significant subject matters in agriculture including the genetic modification of plants to fulfill consumer preferences and needs. Crop improvement includes conventional breeding and biotechnology. The developments in biotechnology have brought to the forefront an interdisciplinary science that is revolutionizing 21st century crop improvement. It has been suggested that many of the limitations of conventional breeding can be overcome with advances in plant biotechnology (Hakeem et al., 2013).
Conventional breeding is a variety of methodologies that combine various …show more content…

The importance of genetic diversity is to broaden the genetic base of crop plants as a defence against problems caused by genetic vulnerability. Genetic vulnerability of many major agricultural crop species is as a result of unvarying parental materials amongst crop varieties that increase narrow genetic base (Rao and Hodgkin, 2002; Mba, 2013). Diversity in plant genetic resources (PGR) provides opportunity for plant breeders to develop new and improved cultivars with desirable characteristics. Genetic variation can be identified by using various techniques such as morphological markers, biochemical markers, and molecular markers (Govindaraj et al., 2014). Genetic diversity can be increased by using recombination and …show more content…

Mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that changes the genetic information (usually DNA) of individuals (Roychowdhury and Tah, 2013). Mutant is individuals carrying mutation that can be identified either by phenotyping tools or molecular means. Mutagenesis is the process that mutations are generated. The term of mutation breeding refers to deliberate induction and development of mutant lines for crop improvement. Mutagenesis can be classified into three types (Forster and Shu, 2011).
3.1. Induced Mutagenesis
Induced Mutagenesis is generated by using physical or chemical mutagens (Forster and Shu, 2011). Physical mutagens are X-rays, Gamma rays, alpha particles, UV and radioactive decays. Chemical mutagens are sodium azide, ethyl methanesulphonate (EMS), methyl methanesulphonate (MMS), hydrogen fluoride (HF), diethyl sulphate, hydroxylamine and N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU). Physical mutagens usually cause large mutations (large-scale deletions of DNA), while chemical mutagens usually cause point mutations (Kozjak and Meglič, 2012).
3.2. Insertion

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