Marker Assisted Selection

For centuries humans have used artificial selection on the phenotypes of domestic

species. Current developments in molecular genetic engineering have the potential

to completely alter agricultural methods. Nonetheless, there are a number of reasons

why traditional agricultural improvement techniques must always be used with

molecular genetics if one is to maximize the increase in the economic value of

domesticated populations. Throughout the previous several decades, the rate of

improvement of economically significant features, such as grain production in corn

and wheat and milk yield in dairy cattle, has been between a few and several percent

of the mean annually (Smith, 1988). It has been determined that for a variety of

crop plants, environmental factors—i.e., environmental effects—rather than

genetic changes—are responsible for around half of this improvement.