Seed Mutagenesis in Plant Breeding: Methods, Applications, Types, and Latest Advances (2026 Guide).
Seed Mutagenesis in Plant Breeding: Methods, Applications, Types, and Latest Advances (2026 Guide) Introduction Global agriculture is facing unprecedented challenges, including climate change, emerging pests and diseases, shrinking natural resources, and the increasing demand for food driven by rapid population growth. To meet these challenges, plant breeders are continuously developing innovative strategies to create crop varieties with higher yields, improved nutritional quality, enhanced resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, and greater adaptability to changing environmental conditions. One of the most successful approaches for generating new genetic variation is mutation breeding , also known as induced mutagenesis . Unlike conventional plant breeding, which relies on naturally occurring genetic diversity or hybridization between parental lines, mutation breeding creates new genetic variation by deliberately inducing changes in the plant genome using physical, chemica...