Define plant breeding ? Describe the various methods of plant breeding.

Plant breeding means production of new varieties or strains by a programme of artificial selection spanning several generations of the organism concerned. It involves hybridization and mutation breeding.

(i) Hybridisation - It involves the crossing between genetically dissimilar plants to produce a new kind. Crossing may be between two different varieties (intervarietal cross — breeding) or between the two different species of the same genus (inter specific cross — breeding) and between different genera (intergeneric cross — breeding).

(ii) Mutation breeding — The breeding that takes place through various mutagens.