Emerging Genetic Technologies to Improve Crop Productivity

Global food security is threatened by reduction of agricultural resources and by an increasing world-wide population. Given this future context, traits relating to yield stability and sustainability are the major focus of plant breeding. Nowadays, plant breeding represents a key component involved in global food security. The process of plant breeding is theoretically simple, but its power resides in the fact that it creates novelty where to select. Crop productivity is a quantitative trait and, as such, bases on a complex genetic mechanism and on a strong environment influence. From the simple plant sexual crossing, the way to enhance crop productivity has been subject to profound innovations giving birth to the molecular plant breeding, a discipline that integrates molecular biology, biotechnology and genomic research and support plant breeders to enhance complex traits. Here, we describe all the emerging genetic technologies that can be used to study and exploit genetic diversity in relation to crop productivity enhancement. In particular, we gave a general view on the genetic basing crop productivity, the traditional methods used for its study and the reasons that lead researchers to develop newer technologies.