Evolutionary Plant Breeding in Cereals—Into a New Era.docVIP

Sustainability 2011, 3, 1944-1971; doi:10.3390/su3101944 OPEN ACCESS sustainability ISSN 2071-1050 /journal/sustainability Review Evolutionary Plant Breeding in Cereals—Into a New Era Thomas F. D?ring 1,*, Samuel Knapp 2, Geza Kovacs 3, Kevin Murphy 4 and Martin S. Wolfe 1 1 The Organic Research Centre, Hamstead Marshall, Newbury, Berkshire RG20 0HR, UK; E-Mail: wolfe@wakelyns.co.uk 2 Institute of Plant Breeding, Seed Science and Population Genetics, University of Hohenheim, Fruwirthstra?e 21, Stuttgart 70599, Germany; E-Mail: samuel.k@gmx.de 3 Department of Genetic Resources and Organic Plant Breeding, Brunszvik u. 2, Martonvásár 2462, Hungary; E-Mail: kovacsg@mail.mgki.hu 4 Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Washington State University, 291D Johnson Hall, Pullman, WA 99164, USA; E-Mail: kmurphy2@ * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: thomas.d@; Tel.: +44-1488-658-298 Ext. 553; Fax: +44-1488-658-503. Received: 23 August 2011; in revised form: 30 September 2011 / Accepted: 9 October 2011 / Published: 17 October 2011 Abstract: In evolutionary plant breeding, crop populations with a high level of genetic diversity are subjected to the forces of natural selection. In a cycle of sowing and re-sowing seed from the plant population year after year, those plants favored under prevailing growing conditions are expected to contribute more seed to the next generation than plants with lower fitness. Thus, evolving crop populations have the capability of adapting to the conditions under which they are grown. Here we review the current state of research in evolutionary plant breeding and concentrate on the ability of evolving plant populations to deal with stressful, variable, and unpredictable environments. This resilience of evolving plant populations is seen as a major advantage under the predicted threats faced by agriculture such as global climate change. We have conducted an analys