Combining speed breeding with traditional and genomics-assisted breeding for crop improvement

Abstract

Accelerated crop growth strategy innovations are required as we reach saturation peaks regarding the productivity of major food crops. Speed breeding (SB) is one of the most promising technologies adopted for this purpose. SB hastens crop production by reducing plant growth and development, breeding time and swift generation advancement. Prolonged daily light exposure shortens the life cycle in some long-day or day-neutral plants leading to early seed harvest. This approach is best suited for controlled environment prebreeding/breeding activities and analysed for several crop species. SB can be integrated with different traditional and advanced genomics-assisted breeding technologies like marker-assisted selection (MAS), genomic selection (GS), pollen-based selection (PBS), overexpression/knock-down transgenics and genome editing to achieve more precise and faster results on translational genetic enhancement. This review will discuss the approaches and strategies adopted for the SB and its potential to integrate existing crop improvement technologies to attain more efficient outcomes on major food crops' varietal improvement.