Recent Perspectives of Mutation Breeding for Crop Improvement

Induced mutation has contributed to a great extent in crop improvement. Mutant lines with agronomic important traits are created by induced mutagenesis through physical, chemical and biological means. Although radiation mutation was predominantly used initially, due its harsh effects on plants chemical mutagens were used to induce mutation at later stage of mutation breeding. Recent advancements in genomics have developed various techniques for creation of mutants as well as their detection. Development of genome editing tools like TALENS, ZFN, and CRISPR has enabled targeted mutagenesis to create desirable traits in agronomically important crops. Presently, in the era of next generation sequencing (NGS) the detection of mutation is fast and cost effective. For characterization of the mutant lines in the omics era several molecular markers like RFLP, RAPD, SSR, SNP, etc. and transcriptome as well as smallRNA profiling are performed. This chapter deals with the various strategies applied to generate mutants in agriculture through classical and molecular means.