Development of Vegetable Hybrids for Climate Change Scenarios

Abstract

Vegetables are grown in diverse climatic conditions from temperate regions to extreme tropics. In tropics and subtropics, the climate shifts are more prominent, and major vegetables are grown round the year in these areas. Breeding vegetable crops suitable for different agroclimatic conditions is the key objective of the commercial companies. Many hybrids are already released by private companies which are adaptable under different agroclimatic conditions. Different breeding options are discussed to meet the challenges of climate change.

More than 100 genera are grown globally as fresh vegetables, but 35–40 genera are the important vegetables which are grown in major vegetable growing areas of the world. Presently, global vegetable seed business is worth US$ 8.0 billion out of US$ 42 billion total seed industry (Fig 10.1). In the last 40 years, it has grown significantly from US$ 0.8 billion to US$8.0 billion, by almost 10 times (Fig 10.2). This clearly indicates the importance of vegetables in food, health and nutrition globally. The Asian vegetable industry is also growing, and traded seed market of vegetable seed is touching $3 billion, and China is the largest partner with $1.5 billion (excluding potato and garlic) (Fig 10.3). The ever expanding area as depicted by the seed sales is indicating that the new varieties are significantly contributing towards higher productivity and value addition thru taste, flavour and higher shelf life.