Next-Generation Breeding Strategies for Climate-Ready Crops

Ali Razzaq; Parwinder Kaur; Naheed Akhter; Shabir Hussain Wani; Fozia Saleem

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.620420

Next-Generation Breeding Strategies for Climate-Ready Crops

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Jul 21:12:620420. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.620420. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ali Razzaq¹, Parwinder Kaur², Naheed Akhter³, Shabir Hussain Wani⁴, Fozia Saleem¹

Affiliations

¹ Centre of Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology (CABB), University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
² UWA School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.
³ College of Allied Health Professional, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁴ Mountain Research Center for Field Crops, Khudwani, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Srinagar, India.

Abstract

Climate change is a threat to global food security due to the reduction of crop productivity around the globe. Food security is a matter of concern for stakeholders and policymakers as the global population is predicted to bypass 10 billion in the coming years. Crop improvement via modern breeding techniques along with efficient agronomic practices innovations in microbiome applications, and exploiting the natural variations in underutilized crops is an excellent way forward to fulfill future food requirements. In this review, we describe the next-generation breeding tools that can be used to increase crop production by developing climate-resilient superior genotypes to cope with the future challenges of global food security. Recent innovations in genomic-assisted breeding (GAB) strategies allow the construction of highly annotated crop pan-genomes to give a snapshot of the full landscape of genetic diversity (GD) and recapture the lost gene repertoire of a species. Pan-genomes provide new platforms to exploit these unique genes or genetic variation for optimizing breeding programs. The advent of next-generation clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat/CRISPR-associated (CRISPR/Cas) systems, such as prime editing, base editing, and de nova domestication, has institutionalized the idea that genome editing is revamped for crop improvement. Also, the availability of versatile Cas orthologs, including Cas9, Cas12, Cas13, and Cas14, improved the editing efficiency. Now, the CRISPR/Cas systems have numerous applications in crop research and successfully edit the major crop to develop resistance against abiotic and biotic stress. By adopting high-throughput phenotyping approaches and big data analytics tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), agriculture is heading toward automation or digitalization. The integration of speed breeding with genomic and phenomic tools can allow rapid gene identifications and ultimately accelerate crop improvement programs. In addition, the integration of next-generation multidisciplinary breeding platforms can open exciting avenues to develop climate-ready crops toward global food security.

Keywords: CRISPR/Cas; abiotic stress; climate change; crop improvement; food security; genome editing; genomics; next-generation breeding.

Publication types

Review