E-BOOK
Techniques in Plantation Science Series Mutation Breeding in Oil Palm: A Manual
As noted in the Foreword to this series, a central objective in Verdant Bioscience’s
mission is to develop better cultivars of oil palm, rubber and other plantation
crops through plant breeding. Essential to this objective is a wide germplasm
base. Conventional breeding is practised by Verdant in the development of
new cultivars. However, this can be a time-consuming exercise, especially as
the generation time in oil palm is 4–5 years. Verdant is therefore committed to
accelerated breeding methods, one of which is mutation breeding. Mutation
breeding is not a genetic manipulation (GM) technique and, indeed, it has been
practised for many decades; the first mutant cultivar was produced in tobacco
in Indonesia in 1934. There are now well over 3000 mutant cultivars in over
200 crop species (http://mvgs.iaea.org) worldwide. It is notable that oil palm is
the only oil crop not to have been improved with the aid of mutation breeding,
although some experiments have been carried out. In this manual, we give an
introduction to mutation breeding and practical protocols on mutation induc-
tion and mutant selection in oil palm. Our target audiences are students and
researchers in agriculture, plant breeders, growers and end-users interested in
the practicalities of producing novel oil palm genotypes for further breeding
and commercial exploitation.
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