Classic Genetics and Traditional Breeding of Tea Plant

The tea plant is an important beverage crop cultivated worldwide. It belongs to the genus Camellia and is generally identified as diploid with a chromosome number of 2n = 2x = 30. The estimated genome size of tea plant is approximately 3.0 Gb, and repetitive sequences account for over 70% of the genome. Maternal inheritance and heterosis have been detected in economically important traits of tea plants such as metabolite contents. In the past decades, significant achievements in tea plant breeding have been made through traditional methods including individual selection, hybridization, and mutation breeding. Furthermore, the combined utilization of molecular marker-assisted selection and conventional methods has shown great potential in shortening the breeding cycle and speeding up tea plant cultivar development. This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of classic genetics and traditional breeding in tea plants, updates the current tea cultivar registration system in the main tea-producing countries, and discusses the challenges and future opportunities.