A critical review on the principles and procedures for cultivar development and evaluation

Abstract

Plant breeding plays an indispensable role in meeting the increasing need for food and comfort of the mankind in a changing climate. Numerous concepts and procedures aiming at improving breeding efficiency have been put forward, such as various strategies for dealing with genotype by environment interaction, stability analyses, mega-environment analyses, experimental designs and analyses, biplot analyses, and selection indices. In addition, genomic selection has evolved into a stage that plant breeders must consider and cannot ignore. It is of practical importance to understand the relationships among these concepts and procedures, their usefulness, drawbacks, and pitfalls, as well as their place in the theoretical framework of plant breeding and genotype evaluation. Based primarily on personal research and experience, this article attempted to develop a systematic narrative on the principles, key concepts, and analytic procedures related to cultivar development and evaluation, with demonstrations using real-world data.