Kang (vice chancellor, Punjab Agricultural U., India) and Priyadarshan (a plant breeder at the Rubber Research Institute of India) present 13 chapters combining technical information on improving the yields and quality of food staple crops through breeding, biofortification, gene transfer, genome mapping, and bioinformatics. Their volume first addresses general topics, including classic and modern crop breeding methodologies, cytogenetic and biotechnological of polypoid crops, biofortification, and bioinformatics. It then addresses the individual crops of wheat, rice, barley, corn, soybean, potato, sweet potato, cassava, and banana. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
As the world’s population increases the need to produce greater quantities of major staple crops such as wheat, rice, maize, potato, cassava, soybean, sweet potato, barley, and banana in order to sufficiently feed the people of the world continues to grow. Breeding Major Food Staples covers improving yields and quality of these crops through breeding and the use of molecular biology tools such as gene transfer, genome mapping, biofortification, and bioinformatics. This book will be an important reference for anyone working in crop breeding.
