Content (Syllabus outline)

History and importance of plant breeding in agriculture. Sources of genetic variation and genebanks.
Principles and applications of quantitative inheritance. The concept of cultivar and legal regulation. Basic methods of plant breeding: Proceedings of hybridizations, mass selection, backcrossing. Breeding methods of self pollinating crops, the importance of inbreeding. Breeding methods of cross pollinated plants, expression of heterosis and its interpretations. Methods of breeding of vegetatively propagated plants and the use of apomixis. Hybrid seed production using self-incompatibility, GMS, CMS. The use of induced mutations. Interspecific hybridizations. Polyploidy in plant breeding. Targeted breeding: breeding for resistance to pests and diseases, to reduce abiotic stresses, breeding for increased quality. Basis of modern approaches to crop improvement: the acquisition of inbred lines with the procedures of haploid, interspecific crossings through education and in vitro embryo and protoplast fusion, in vitro induced mutations. The successes of plant breeding in Slovenia and abroad. Invited lectures.

Prerequisites

Conditions for inclusion in the work:

Enrolment in the appropriate academic year.

Conditions for performing study obligations

a) Written preliminary examination

b) Research project

c) Written examination