1  Cover

      2  Preface

      3  Acknowledgments

      4  Industry highlights boxes

      5  Industry highlights boxes: Authors

      6  Section 1: Overview and historical perspectives 1 Introduction 1.1 What is plant breeding? 1.2 The goals of plant breeding 1.3 The concept of genetic manipulation of plant attributes 1.4 Why breed plants? 1.5 Overview of the basic steps in plant breeding 1.6 How have plant breeding objectives changed over the years? 1.7 The art and science of plant breeding 1.8 Training of plant breeders 1.9 The plant breeding industry 1.10 Duration and cost of plant breeding programs 1.11 The future of plant breeding in society 1.12 The organization of the book Key references and suggested reading Internet resources for reference Outcomes assessment 2 History of plant breeding 2.1 Origins of agriculture and plant breeding 2.2 The “unknown breeder” 2.3 Plant manipulation efforts by the early civilizations 2.4 Early pioneers of the theories and practices of modern plant breeding 2.5 Later pioneers and trailblazers 2.6 History of plant breeding technologies/techniques 2.7 Genome‐wide approaches to crop improvement 2.8 Bioinformatics and OMICs technologies in crop improvement 2.9 Summary of changes in plant breeding over the last half century 2.10 Achievements of modern plant breeders Key references and suggested reading Internet resources Outcomes assessment

      7  Section 2: Population and quantitative genetic principles 3 Introduction to concepts of population genetics 3.1 Concepts of a population and gene pool 3.2 Issues arising from Hardy‐Weinberg equilibrium 3.3 Factors affecting changes in gene frequency 3.4 Frequency dependent selection 3.5 Summary of key plant breeding applications 3.6 Modes of selection 3.7 Effect of mating system on selection 3.8 Concept of inbreeding 3.9 Inbreeding and its implications in plant breeding 3.10 Concept of population improvement 3.11 Types Key references and suggested reading Internet resources Outcomes assessment 4 Introduction to quantitative genetics 4.1 What is quantitative genetics? 4.2 Quantitative traits 4.3 The genetic architecture of quantitative traits 4.4 Systems genetics 4.5 Predicting breeding value 4.6 Genomic selection (genome‐wide selection) 4.7 Mapping quantitative traits Key references and suggested reading Internet resources Outcomes assessment

      8  Section 3: Reproductive systems 5 Introductionto reproduction 5.1 Importance of mode of reproduction to plant breeding 5.2 Overview of reproductive options in plants 5.3 Types of reproduction