MOLECULAR MARKERS ASSISTED PLANT BREEDING

Despite the release of thousands of different crop cultivars in the world via conventional breeding methods. These methods are still considered so lengthy, and time consuming when compared to molecular markers assisted plant breeding. The use of molecular markers will facilitate and enhance the efficiency of conventional plant breeding methods. It was found that to transfer all genes controlling yield of a recurrent cultivar we need about twenty generations of backcrossing. However, it was found that each locus in a group of maize inbreds involved 2-16 different alleles. That makes conventional breeding methods alone less efficient to fulfill all required yield loci. Meanwhile, several techniques of molecular markers were developed and used all over the world. The most prominent techniques of those were: RFLP= Restricted Fragment Length Polymorphism, AFLP= Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism. RAPD= Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA, and other techniques, especially the newest one; SNP= Single Nucleotide Polymorphism.