Breeding Plantation Tree Crops: Tropical Species

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.

From the reviews: "Chapters are generally divided into several subsections, beginning with a botanical description of the crop and an overview of genetic resources available for breeding. The book highlights world production centers, crop uses, and value. … Chapters also cover breeding techniques and the current employment of biotechnological applications for crop improvement. … Each thoroughly referenced chapter provides an up-to-date review of literature that will be valuable for advanced readers. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above." (R. M. Warner, Choice, Vol. 46 (11), July, 2009) "This Tropical species volume of the Breeding plantation tree crops series … aimed at providing ‘comprehensive information on a package of conventional breeding, biotechnology and molecular tools to scientists, students and even policy makers and planters’. … In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to scientists (both breeders and plant biotechnologists), students, agronomists and … tropical farmers too! It provides an updated vision on breeding and biotechnology applied to crop species of paramount economic interest for the tropical world." (Alain Rival, Annals of Botany, Vol. 104 (6), November, 2009)