agricultural biotechnology

  Introduction Agriculture is continuously challenged by increasing population demands, climate change, reduction in cultivable land, emerging diseases, and changing environmental conditions. To overcome these challenges, crop improvement programs aim to develop varieties that are more productive, nutritious, resistant to diseases, and capable of surviving under stressful environments. For many decades, plant breeding depended mainly on conventional selection methods , where breeders evaluated plants based on visible characteristics such as plant height, grain size, flowering time, yield, disease symptoms, and quality traits. Although conventional breeding has successfully produced many improved crop varieties, it has several limitations. Many important agricultural traits are controlled by multiple genes and their expression can be strongly influenced by environmental conditions. As a result, selecting superior plants only through field observations can be slow, expensive, and som...