Tree species are indispensable to support human life. Due to their long life cycle and environmental sensitivity, breeding trees to suit day-to-day human needs is a formidable challenge. Whether they are edible or industrial crops, improving yield under optimal, sub-optimal and marginal areas calls for uni?ed efforts from the s- entistsaroundtheworld. Whiletheuniquenessofcoconutaskalpavriksha(Sanskr- meaning tree-of-life) marks its presence in every continent from Far East to South America, tree crops like cocoa, oil palm, rubber, apple, peach, grapes and walnut prove their environmental sensitivity towards tropical, sub-tropical and temperate climates. Desert climate is quintessential for date palm. Thus, from soft drinks to breweries to beverages to oil to tyres, the value addition offers a spectrum of pr- ucts to human kind, enriched with nutritional, environmental, ?nancial, social and trade related attributes. Taxonomically, tree crops do not con?ne to a few families, but spread across a section of genera, an attribute so unique that contributes immensely to genetic biodiversity even while cultivated at the commercial scale. Many of these species in?uence other ?ora to nurture in their vicinity, thus ensuring their integrity in p- serving the genetic biodiversity. While wheat, rice, maize, barley, soybean, cassava andbananamakeup themajorfoodstaples,manyfruittreespeciescontributegreatly tonutritionalenrichment inhumandiet. Theediblepartofthesespeciesisthesource of several nutrients that makes additives for the daily diet of humans, for example, vitamins, sugars, aromas and ?avour compounds, and raw material for food proce- ing industries. Tree crops face an array of agronomic and horticultural problems in propagation, yield, appearance, quality, diseases and pest control, abiotic stresses and poor shelf-life.

Tree species are indispensable to human needs. Due to their long life cycle and environmental sensitivity, breeding trees for sustainable production is a formidable challenge in order to meet the demands of growing human population and industries. Fruit crops such as apple, cocoa, mango, citrus, litchi, pear, dates, and coconut or industrial crops including rubber and tea, improving yield under the optimal, sub-optimal and marginal areas call for a unified worldwide effort. While the uniqueness of coconut as ‘kalpavriksha’ (Sanskrit - meaning tree of life) makes its presence in every continent from Far East to South America, tree crops such as cocoa, oil palm, rubber, apple, peach and walnut prove their environmental sensitivity towards tropical, subtropical and temperate climates. Date palm is quintessential for desert climate. Thus, from soft drinks to breweries to oil to tires, the value addition offers a spectrum of products to human kind, enriched with nutritional, environmental, financial, and trade related attributes. This volume is a compilation of information on breeding of temperate tree species and provides first hand comprehensive knowledge to research, teach, and make policies.

This book examines the development of innovative modern methodologies towards augmenting conventional plant breeding for the production of new crop varieties, under the increasingly limiting environmental and cultivation factors, to achieve sustainable agricultural production and enhanced food security. Two volumes of Advances in Plant Breeding Strategies were published in 2015 and 2016, respectively; Volume 1: Breeding, Biotechnology and Molecular Tools and Volume 2: Agronomic, Abiotic and Biotic Stress Traits. This is Volume 3: Fruits, which is focused on advances in breeding strategies for the improvement of individual fruit crops. It consists of 23 chapters grouped into three parts, according to distribution classification of fruit trees: Part I, Temperate Fruits, Part II, Subtropical Fruits, and Part III, Tropical Fruits. Each chapter comprehensively reviews the modern literature on the subject and reflects the authors' own experience.

This book examines the development of innovative modern methodologies towards augmenting conventional plant breeding, in individual crops, for the production of new crop varieties under the increasingly limiting environmental and cultivation factors to achieve sustainable agricultural production, enhanced food security, in addition to providing raw materials for innovative industrial products and pharmaceuticals. This Volume 4, subtitled Nut and Beverage Crops, focuses on advances in breeding strategies using both traditional and modern approaches for the improvement of individual plantation crops. Included in Part I, eleven important nut species recognized for their economical and nutritional importance including Almond, Argan, Brazil nut, Cashew nut, Chestnut, Hazelnut, Macadamia, Peanut, Pine nut, Pistachio and Walnut. Part II covers two popular beverage species, coffee and tea. This volume is contributed by 53 internationally reputable scientists from 13 countries. Each chapter comprehensively reviews the modern literature on the subject and reflects the authors own experience.

Tea is an important non-alcoholic beverage plant of the world. Cultivation of tea is very important as it earns revenue for the tea growing nations especially the developing countries such as India. Although conventional breeding is well-established and has contributed significantly for varietal improvement of this plant and other Camellia species with ornamental value, yet applications of biotechnology are required to intervene some of the issues where conventional breeding is restricted particularly for woody plants such as tea. It is note-worthy to mention that some amounts of biotechnology works in several facets of tea and its wild species have also been done. In the present book, a state-of-the-art on various aspects of breeding and biotechnology has been complied in eight chapters. They are: i) Origin and descriptions of health benefits as well as morphological classification as first chapter, ii) Breeding and cytogenetics that comprise with various conventional approaches of varietal improvement of tea along with their genetic resources, iii) Micropropagation which deals with in-depth study of clonal propagation, iv) Somatic embryogenesis along with alternative techniques such as suspension culture, cry-preservation etc. v) Molecular breeding that deals with application of various DNA-based markers, linkage map etc., vi) Genetic transformation and associated factors, vii) Stress physiology complied with various works done in tea along with its wild relatives on abiotic as well as biotic stress, and viii) Functional genomics that describe the various works of molecular cloning and characterizations, differential gene expression, high-throughput sequencing, bioinformatics etc. Importantly, the author has made exclusive tables in most of the chapters that include the summary of the works in particular topic. In a nutshell, the book compiles the work already been done, identifies the problems, analyzes the gaps on breeding and biotechnological works of tea as well as its wild species and discusses the future scope as conclusion. Every effort has been made to include all the published works till June 2013. The book will be a useful resource for post-graduate, doctoral as well post-doctoral students working on tea as well as other woody plants. This will also be useful for the scientists working in the areas of life sciences, genomics, biotechnology and molecular biology.

Crops experience an assortment of environmental stresses which include abiotic viz., drought, water logging, salinity, extremes of temperature, high variability in radiation, subtle but perceptible changes in atmospheric gases and biotic viz., insects, birds, other pests, weeds, pathogens (viruses and other microbes). The ability to tolerate or adapt and overwinter by effectively countering these stresses is a very multifaceted phenomenon. In addition, the inability to do so which renders the crops susceptible is again the result of various exogenous and endogenous interactions in the ecosystem. Both biotic and abiotic stresses occur at various stages of plant development and frequently more than one stress concurrently affects the crop. Stresses result in both universal and definite effects on plant growth and development. One of the imposing tasks for the crop researchers globally is to distinguish and to diminish effects of these stress factors on the performance of crop plants, especially with respect to yield and quality of harvested products. This is of special significance in view of the impending climate change, with complex consequences for economically profitable and ecologically and environmentally sound global agriculture. The challenge at the hands of the crop scientist in such a scenario is to promote a competitive and multifunctional agriculture, leading to the production of highly nourishing, healthy and secure food and animal feed as well as raw materials for a wide variety of industrial applications. In order to successfully meet this challenge researchers have to understand the various aspects of these stresses in view of the current development from molecules to ecosystems. The book will focus on broad research areas in relation to these stresses which are in the forefront in contemporary crop stress research.

This book links tropical agri-chain dynamics – with which CIRAD and AFD have been involved for decades – to that of sustainable development. Increased environmental and social concerns urge agri-chain actors and development practitioners to design innovations, and public and private actors to invent regulations in connection with agri-chains to improve sustainability.With a view to contributing towards implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this book examines the different roles of agri-chains: as vectors of development, as spaces of innovation, as objects of evaluation, and as arenas of regulation. It builds upon the findings and experiences of CIRAD and its researchers together with their Southern partners, and of AFD and its officers.Linking agricultural production with the other economic sectors, agri- chains are key spaces where local and global challenges to sustainability meet and where local and global actors experiment interlinked or common solutions.

Contents 1. Maria Isabel Andrade: Sweetpotato Breeder, Technology Transfer Specialist, and Advocate 1 2. Development of Cold Climate Grapes in the Upper Midwestern U.S.: The Pioneering Work of Elmer Swenson 31 3. Candidate Genes to Extend Fleshy Fruit Shelf Life 61 4. Breeding Naked Barley for Food, Feed, and Malt 95 5. The Foundations, Continuing Evolution, and Outcomes from the Application of Intellectual Property Protection in Plant Breeding and Agriculture 121 6. The Use of Endosperm Genes for Sweet Corn Improvement: A review of developments in endosperm genes in sweet corn since the seminal publication in Plant Breeding Reviews, Volume 1, by Charles Boyer and Jack Shannon (1984) 215 7. Gender and Farmer Preferences for Varietal Traits: Evidence and Issues for Crop Improvement 243 8. Domestication, Genetics, and Genomics of the American Cranberry 279 9. Images and Descriptions of Cucurbita maxima in Western Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 317

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers 19 detailed protocols on the use of induced mutations in crop breeding and functional genomics studies, which cover topics including chemical and physical mutagenesis, phenotypic screening methods, traditional TILLING and TILLING by sequencing, doubled haploidy, targeted genome editing, and low-cost methods for the molecular characterization of mutant plants that are suitable for laboratories in developing countries. The collection of protocols equips users with the techniques they need in order to start a program on mutation breeding or functional genomics using both forward and reverse-genetic approaches. Methods are provided for seed and vegetatively propagated crops (e.g. banana, barley, cassava, jatropha, rice) and can be adapted for use in other species.

This new volume is a rich and comprehensive resource of the basic information and latest developments and research efforts on tropical and subtropical fruits. It presents an extensive overview of crop production techniques, processing, marketing, breeding efforts, harvesting, postharvest handling, pest and disease management, and more of banana, citrus, durian, grapes, guava, jackfruit, litchi, mango, and papaya.