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Intranet Breeding
and Genetics
Department programs in breeding and genetics of horticultural crops are
known throughout the world for the production of cultivars and germplasm
adapted to tropical and high-temperate climates. These programs are responsible
for developing, testing, preserving, and distributing cultivars, parental
lines, and collections of wild plants related to the cultivars, along
with genetic stocks that contain important, simply inherited traits. The
breeders also investigate new methods of breeding, evaluate new crops
that might merit domestication, contribute to germplasm conservation,
and discover new traits that can be added to old crops. Various methods
are used, including recurrent selection, wide hybridization, polyploid
induction, induced mutations, somatic hybridization, and marker-assisted
selection. Genes are discovered and incorporated that produce useful characteristics,
such as parthenocarpy, alterations in plant growth habit, enhanced flavor
and nutrition, changes in adaptation and ripening time, and resistance
to insects, diseases, and nematodes. Breeders work closely with geneticists
and molecular biologists at the University of Florida and throughout the
world.
UF Plant Breeding Working Group
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