Plant Breeding Reviews

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. Dedication: Henry A. Jones (1889–1981) Plant Breeder Extraordinaire

   • Thomas W. Whitaker

   Pages 1-10

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3. The Genetics of Petunia

   • André Cornu, Daniel Maizonnier

   Pages 11-58

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4. Breeding Common Bean for Improved Quantity and Quality of Seed Protein

   • F. A. Bliss, John W. S. Brown

   Pages 59-102

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5. Genetics of Storage Protein in Maize

   • C. Y. Tsai

   Pages 103-138

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6. The Use of Endosperm Genes for Sweet Corn Improvement

   • C. D. Boyer, J. C. Shannon

   Pages 139-161

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7. Breeding Pearl Millet

   • Glenn W. Burton

   Pages 162-182

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8. Breeding Soybeans Resistant to Diseases

   • J. R. Wilcox

   Pages 183-235

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9. The Genetic Improvement of Black Walnut for Timber Production

   • Walter F. Beineke

   Pages 236-266

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10. The Genes of Lettuce and Closely Related Species

    • R. W. Robinson, J. D. McCreight, E. J. Ryder

    Pages 267-293

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11. Breeding Apple Rootstocks

    • James N. Cummins, Herb S. Aldwinckle

    Pages 294-394

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12. Back Matter

    Pages 395-397

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Plant breeding, the domestication and systematic improvement of crop species, is the basis of past and present agriculture. Our so­ called primitive progenitors selected practically all our present-day crop plants, and the improvement wrought through millenia of selection has so changed some of them that in many cases their links to the past have been obliterated. There is no doubt that this ranks among the greatest of human achievements. Although plant breeding has been a continuous empirical activity for as long as humans have forsaken the vagaries and thrill of hunting for the security and toil of agriculture, genetic crop improvement is now very much of a twentieth-century discipline. Its scientific underpinnings date to the beginning of this century with the discovery of Gregor Mendel's classic 1865 paper on the inheritance of seven characters in the garden pea. If any science can be traced to single event, the best example is surely found in the conception of modern genetics that appears in this single creative work. The relationship of plant breeding progress to advances in genetics has become closely entwined. Mendel himself was concerned with crop improvement and worked on schemes for apple and pear breeding. Plant breeding also has claims on other scientific and agricultural disci­ plines-botany, plant pathology, biochemistry, statistics, taxonomy, entomology, and cytology, to name a few-and has also impinged on our social, ethical, economic, and political consciousness.

• breeding
• genetics
• plant breeding
• plants
• science

• Purdue University, USA

  Jules Janick

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