Method of Plant Breeding in Cross Pollinated Plants – Line Breeding and Mass Selection

Method of Plant Breeding in Cross Pollinated Plants – Line Breeding and Mass Selection

Line Breeding:

It is variation of progeny selection. In this method one or several cycles of selection are carried out on the basis of progeny test. At the last selection cycle the superior lines or progenies which are similar in phenotype, are mixed to produce a new variety. The mixture is grown in isolation and open pollination is permitted. This helps to maintain the vigour, which might be lost by controlled pollination.

Mass Selection:

Mass selection is the oldest method of breeding commonly used for cross pollinated crops. In this method number of plants are selected on the basis of their phenotype, and the open pollinated seed from them is bulked together to raise the next generation. The selected plants are allowed to open pollinate i.e to mate at random. Thus, mass selection is based on maternal parent only, and there is no control on the pollen parent. Selection of plant is based on the phenotype and no progeny test is conducted.

This method of breeding is an extremely simple and selection cycle is very short i.e of only one generation but it may be repeated one or more times to increase the frequency of favourable alleles. The efficiency of mass selection primarily depends upon the number of gene controlling the character, gene frequency and heritability of concerned traits.