Role of CRISPR/Cas9 in Improvement of Horticultural Crops

Horticultural crops encompass of fruits, vegetables, nuts, flowers, aromatic herbs, and medicinal plants, and they offer essential benefits in terms of nutrition, medicine, and visual appeal for humanity. However, these crops frequently face various challenges, both biotic stresses (like diseases and insect pests) and abiotic stresses (such as drought and salinity stress). Traditional breeding methods aimed at enhancing crop characteristics typically involve a laborious process of multiple backcrossing and selection to introduce advantageous traits into elite germplasm, consuming significant time and resources. In contrast, recent advancements in plant breeding techniques, exemplified by the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated protein-9 (Cas9) technology, offer the potential for quicker, cost-effective, and precise tools for crop improvement. Within the context of this article, knowledge of CRISPR/Cas9 technology, tracing its historical development, examining its various classifications, considering its general applications, delving into its specific implementations in horticultural crops, addressing the challenges associated with its adoption, assessing the available resources for its utilization, exploring the regulatory aspects tied to its use, and outlining the prospective directions this technology may take in the field of horticulture.