Participatory breeding for drought and salt tolerant crops

Abstract

Although enormous effort has been put into conventional breeding programmes for both drought and salt tolerance, there has been little progress in producing varieties that are adopted by farmers in their fields. This is largely due to the lack of consideration given to the specific needs of farmers in droughted and salt-affected environments, in particular in terms of non-yield post-harvest traits. We discuss with examples the advantages and disadvantages of participatory variety selection (PVS) and participatory plant breeding (PPB) in their various forms, as well as the use of the term client-oriented breeding to describe the process of involving the end-users of the breeding programme. Methods for the analysis of participatory trials, and practical considerations for their management, are presented. We also show how both participatory and molecular approaches can be combined into an integrated, client-oriented breeding programme © 2007 Springer.