Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding
In the nearly 12,000 years of history of domestication of
plants global climate has changed, it is now changing and
shall continue to change. Man, ecosystem, plants and
crops have been responding to this change through their
fitness and survival. Post industrialization change in
human activity often accelerated climate change faster
than the biological adjustment.This drag in fitness of crops
due to climate change is a complex phenomenon and is
difficult to address. Genetics of fitness, survival and
adaptation in crop plants is a grey area of knowledge. By
selecting for stable economic yield across environment
plant breeders have overcome the impact of changing
weather. Ecological genetics and plant breeding need to
focus on better root and water usage efficiency. In this
changing context genetic resources are to be seen with
renewed interest. Emphasis should also be to collect and
document ecotypes of a given specie/variety. These
ecotypes may have morphological overlap but may
express new traits under varying conditions.Thus, a large
global Information base is to be created on ecotypes to
simulate and design ideotypes that may perform under a
bunch of stress conditions. Innovation centric research
in the area of new biology with a focus onepigenetics,
microbe - root interaction studies etc may open new
knowledge and tools to handle climate change. The
present division of crop science into separate silos is
proving to be counterproductive and resists the
application of GRIiN (Genetics, Resources, Information,
Innovation and New Biology) to climate change. Tryst
with climate change poses a new opportunity for plant
breeders to organize themselves as an inter-science
forum.
Keywords: Ecotypes, epiallele, fitness, adaptation, GRIiN, climate change, endophytes, biodiversity
Year: 2014
Volume: 74
Issue: Supplementry Issue
Article DOI: 10.5958/0975-6906.2014.00886.4
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906
S. Nagarajan info_circle
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