Selective Breeding in Plants (Edexcel IGCSE Biology)
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Biology Lead
Selective Breeding in Plants
- Selective breeding of plants takes place in the same way as selective breeding of animals
- Plants are selectively bred by humans for development of many characteristics, including:
- Disease resistance in food crops
- Increased crop yield
- Hardiness to weather conditions (eg. drought tolerance)
- Better tasting fruits
- Large or unusual flowers
- An example of a plant that has been selectively bred in multiple ways is wild brassica, which has given rise to cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale and kohlrabi:
An example of selective breeding in plants
Problems with selective breeding
- Selective breeding can lead to ‘inbreeding’
- This occurs when only the ‘best’ animals or plants (which are closely related to each other) are bred together
- This results in a reduction in the gene pool – this is a reduction in the number of alleles (different versions of genes) in a population
- As inbreeding limits the size of the gene pool, there is an increased chance of:
- Organisms inheriting harmful genetic defects
- Organisms being vulnerable to new diseases (there is less chance of resistant alleles being present in the reduced gene pool)
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