This edited book highlights the gravity and efficacy of next-generation breeding tools for the enhancement of stress-resilience in cereals, especially in the context of climate change, pests, diseases, and abiotic stresses. The content of the book helps in understanding the application of emerging genetic concepts and neoteric genomic approaches in cereal breeding. It collates all the latest information about enhancing the stress resilience in cereal crops for overcoming food security issues. Cereals have predominantly been used as a staple food since time immemorial and contribute more than 50% of the caloric requirement of the global population. However, in cereals, the yield losses due to various stresses are very high, considering the crop growth stage and stress sensitivity. Therefore, to feed and nourish the generations in the era of climate change, it is imperative to develop stress-resilient cereal cultivars. This book explores newly developed next-generation breeding tools, viz., genome-wide association studies, genomic prediction, genome editing, and accelerated generation advancement methodologies, which revealed promising outcomes by enhancing the stress resilience in cereals with yield potential. This book is useful for postgraduate students specializing in plant breeding, plant stress physiology, plant genomics, agriculture, and agronomy. It is of immense value to scientific community involved in teaching, research, and extension activities related to cereal cultivation.

This book presents abiotic stresses that cause crop damage in the range of 6-20%. Understanding the interaction of crop plants to the abiotic stresses caused by heat, cold, drought, flooding, submergence, salinity, acidity, etc., is important to develop resistant crop varieties. Knowledge on the advanced genetic and genomic crop improvement strategies including molecular breeding, transgenics, genomic-assisted breeding, and the recently emerging genome editing for developing resistant varieties in cereal crops is imperative for addressing FPNEE (food, health, nutrition, energy, and environment) security. Whole genome sequencing of these crops followed by genotyping-by-sequencing has facilitated precise information about the genes conferring resistance useful for gene discovery, allele mining, and shuttle breeding which in turn opened up the scope for 'designing' crop genomes with resistance to abiotic stresses. The nine chapters each dedicated to a cereal crop in this volume are deliberate on different types of abiotic stresses and their effects on and interaction with crop plants; enumerate on the available genetic diversity with regard to abiotic stress resistance among available cultivars; illuminate on the potential gene pools for utilization in interspecific gene transfer; are brief on the classical genetics of stress resistance and traditional breeding for transferring them to their cultivated counterparts; elucidate on the success stories of genetic engineering for developing abiotic stress-resistant crop varieties; discuss on molecular mapping of genes and QTLs underlying stress resistance and their marker-assisted introgression into elite varieties; enunciate on different emerging genomics-aided techniques including genomic selection, allele mining, gene discovery, and gene pyramiding for developing adaptive crop varieties with higher quantity and quality, and also elaborate some case studies on genome editing focusing on specific genes for generating abiotic stress-resistant crops.

This book presents deliberations on molecular and genomic mechanisms underlying the interactions of crop plants to the biotic stresses caused by different diseases and pests that are important to develop resistant crop varieties. Knowledge on the advanced genetic and genomic crop improvement strategies including molecular breeding, transgenics, genomic-assisted breeding, and the recently emerging genome editing for developing resistant varieties in cereal crops is imperative for addressing FHNEE (food, health, nutrition, energy, and environment) security. Whole genome sequencing of these crops followed by genotyping-by-sequencing has provided precise information regarding the genes conferring resistance useful for gene discovery, allele mining, and shuttle breeding which in turn opened up the scope for 'designing' crop genomes with resistance to biotic stresses. The eight chapters each dedicated to a cereal crop in this volume elucidate on different types of biotic stresses and their effects on and interaction with the crop; enumerate on the available genetic diversity with regard to biotic stress resistance among available cultivars; illuminate on the potential gene pools for utilization in interspecific gene transfer; present brief on classical genetics of stress resistance and traditional breeding for transferring them to their cultivated counterparts; depict the success stories of genetic engineering for developing biotic stress-resistant crop varieties; discuss on molecular mapping of genes and QTLs underlying stress resistance and their marker-assisted introgression into elite varieties; enunciate on different genomics-aided techniques including genomic selection, allele mining, gene discovery, and gene pyramiding for developing adaptive crop varieties with higher quantity and quality of yields, and also elaborate some case studies on genome editing focusing on specific genes for generating biotic stress-resistant crops.

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 5, subtitled Cereals, focuses on advances in breeding strategies using both traditional and modern approaches for the improvement of individual crops. It addresses important staple food crops including barley, fonio, finger millet, foxtail millet, pearl millet, proso millet, quinoa, rice, rye, tef, triticale and spelt wheat. The volume is contributed by 53 internationally reputable scientists from 14 countries. Each chapter comprehensively reviews the modern literature on the subject and reflects the authors own experience.

This book emphasizes on cutting-edge next-generation smart plant breeding approaches for maximizing the use of genomic resources generated by high-throughput genomics in the post-genomic era. Through this book the readers would learn about the recent development in the genomic approaches such as genotype by sequencing (GBS) for genomic analysis (SNPs, Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), whole-genome re-sequencing (WGRS) and RNAseq for transcriptomic analysis (DEGs, Differentially Expressed Genes). To maximize the genetic gains in the cereal/food crops, the book covers topics on transgenic breeding, genome editing, high-throughput phenotyping, reliable/precision phenotyping and genomic information-based analysis. In the era of climate change and the ever-increasing population, food security and nutritional security are the primary concern of plant breeders, growers, and policymakers to address the UN’s sustainable development goals. Chapters of this book cohere around these goals and covers techniques such as (QTL mapping, association studies, candidate gene identification), omics, RNAi [through micro RNA (miRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA) and artificial micro RNA (amiRNA)]. It also covers other genomic techniques like antisense technology, genome editing (CRISPR/cas9, base editing) and epigenomics that assist the crop improvement programmes to fulfil the UNs sustainable development goals. It explores the influence of rapidly available sequencing data assisting in the next generation breeding programmes. This volume is a productive resource for the students, researchers, scientists, teachers, public and private sector stakeholders involved in the genetic enhancement of cereal crops.

Focuses on novel breeding and biotechnological approaches for crop improvement, covering advances in molecular breeding and plant breeding, such as pre-breeding, reverse breeding, allele mining, next-generation sequencing, etc., to develop climate-resilient crops that can withstand hostility or adversities of climate.

This book highlights modern methods and strategies to improve cereal crops in the era of climate change, presenting the latest advances in plant molecular mapping and genome sequencing. Spectacular achievements in the fields of molecular breeding, transgenics and genomics in the last three decades have facilitated revolutionary changes in cereal- crop-improvement strategies and techniques. Since the genome sequencing of rice in 2002, the genomes of over eight cereal crops have been sequenced and more are to follow. This has made it possible to decipher the exact nucleotide sequence and chromosomal positions of agroeconomic genes. Most importantly, comparative genomics and genotyping-by-sequencing have opened up new vistas for exploring available biodiversity, particularly of wild crop relatives, for identifying useful donor genes.