Vegetable Breeding: Status and Strategies

Abstract

Vegetable crops are a crucial component of the global food supply chain, with a vast range of variety, flavor profiles, and nutritional value, making them a staple meal of many cultures globally. India is the second-largest producer of vegetables in the world, commercially growing over 60 different types of vegetables for fresh consumption. Breeding vegetables is a challenging and complex process due to location-specific demand for color, shape, nutrition, taste, harvest stage of product, quality issues, and demand for year-round supply of fresh product. A combination of specialized knowledge, use of cutting-edge technology, availability of genetic resources and sufficient capital to effectively utilize these resources is a prerequisite for more innovative breeding. The present review summarizes the status of vegetable cultivation, common breeding methods, targeted traits, wild genetic resources, the modern breeding approaches, use of intelligence and machine learning approaches for improvement in vegetable crops for yield, quality, adaptability, safe product and consumers’ expectation.