Crop Improvement

Crop breeding is as old as farming itself, and people have been refining plants for thousands of years. As the global population keeps climbing, the amount of food grown must rise substantially. Wheat, maize, rice and potato are expected to stay the most significant crops worldwide, and considerable international effort goes into cataloguing and putting genetic resources to work.

The transfer of genes into wheat laid the groundwork for the Green Revolution, a episode that also made clear how strongly genetic resources influence harvests. Plants perform well under varied conditions because of several interacting factors, so meeting future food needs will depend on combining every available technological tool and resource.