Somaclonal Variation in Fruit Crop Improvement

Genetic variability induced by somaclonal variation is a viable tool to generate new traits in plants and create a new variety. During the last three-four decades, somaclonal variation has been utilized efficiently in selecting variants with desirable characteristics in many commercially important plants, including fruit crops. Somaclonal variation offers immense scope for crop improvement in fruit plants, as most fruit plants are trees that have many breeding concerns. Several valuable somaclonal variants, mainly associated with crop improvement traits like disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, fruit quality, growth characteristics, etc., have been selected in many fruit plants through in vitro selection techniques. Few of them are released as commercial cultivars. This chapter emphasizes the potential and perspectives of somaclonal variation in fruit crop improvement. Further, the chapter also includes a list of useful variants selected through somaclonal variation in fruit plants.