Understanding Modern Techniques and Tools to Revolutionize Plant Breeding for Sustainable Crop Improvement

The modern era of plant breeding is experiencing a shift from conventional to modern breeding methods, driven by the integration of these modern tools for rapid and sustainable crop improvement. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) helps breeders in the precise selection of traits at the genomic level, hence accelerating crop improvement and improving the efficiency of selection. For quick generational advancement, speed breeding is a great technique, as it significantly reduces the crop maturity cycle with manipulation of photoperiod, temperature, CO2 concentration, and other factors, hence boosting the process of crop improvement. Big data provided by high-throughput phenotyping enables breeders in precise assessment of large plant populations in breeding programs. CRISPR/Cas9 has also emerged as a great tool for precise editing of a specific region of the genome allowing targeted improvement in plants. Tools such as Artificial intelligence and machine learning have a great potential for analyzing big data produced by these modern tools and in trait prediction as well. The review tends to provide a detailed understanding of these modern tools and their application in plant breeding. The integrated use of these modern plant breeding tools such as MAS, speed breeding, high-throughput phenotyping, CRISPR/Cas, and artificial intelligence/machine learning with conventional breeding holds the potential to address the problem of future food security, ensuring sustainable crop improvement to feed future generations.