Scientists turn to speed breeding to develop resilient, high yield crops

The demand for food continues to rise with the growing population, while most of the food crops face challenges such as a shorter season, infestation by pests and erratic weather. Therefore, scientists at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology SKUAST Kashmir are turning to 'speed breeding', a technology in fast-tracking the development of climate-resilient and high yield crops meant for the growing population in the valley.

This has put immense pressure on resources and overall food demand, with Jammu and Kashmir's annual population growth rate ranging from 1 to 2.6% after the year 2000. This comes amidst a backdrop of declining land area, vagaries of climate change, soil erosion, water deficit, short growing seasons, resurgence of new pests, and a constant shortage of quality seeds.

In SKUAST, scientists are resorting to speed breeding to fulfill the growing demand for food in the face of these difficulties. Speed breeding is a new technique that involves hastening the growth cycle of crops under controlled environmental conditions. Although conventional breeding has limits that allow only one or two generations of crops per year, depending on the nature of the climate, with speed breeding, as many as four to six seed-to-seed cycles per year can be achieved by scientists.

According to Asif Bashir Shikari, Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding in SKAUST- Kashmir and Principal Investigator of Speed-Breeding programme in Kashmir, the concept behind speed breeding technique is that 'the idea is to accelerate the breeding'. Though not a crop cultivation system, when a variety comes out of the speed breeding programme, it can be released for commercial cultivation, he clarified.

Shikari explained that the development of a new variety of crop generally takes eight years. After that, it would take another two to three years for regulatory approval before the variety reaches the farmers. It can take up to a decade before a new improved variety is available in the market.

"Speed breeding shortens this entire process considerably. It grows plants under controlled environmental conditions using advanced full-spectrum PPFD lights, accurate temperature and humidity, and optimized photoperiods for the length of time each day that plants receive light. This enables the growth of multiple generations of crops per year-up to five or six in rice-compared with only one or two generations using traditional field or glasshouse conditions," Shikari said