NEW TRENDS IN PLANT BREEDING - EXAMPLE OF SOYBEAN

Soybean breeding and selection is a continual process designed to increase yield levels and improve resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Soybean breeders have been successful in producing a large number of varieties using conventional breeding methods, the Single Seed Descent method in particular. In recent decades, with the increased use of genetic transformations, backcrossing is more frequent though the only trait that has been commercialized is glyphosate tolerance. Physiological breeding poses a particular challenge, as well as phenotyping and development of useful criteria and techniques suitable for plant breeding. Using modern remote sensing techniques provides great opportunity for collecting a large amount of physiological data in real environment, which is necessary for physiological breeding. Molecular based plant breeding methods and techniques are a conceptual part of any serious breeding program. Among those methods, the most extensively used is marker-assisted selection, as a supplement to conventional breeding methods.