Prinnciples of Pure Line Selection
Pure Line Selection Pure line selection is one of the oldest and most important methods of plant breeding. It is mainly used for the improvement of self-pollinated crops. In agriculture, many crop plants show natural variation in characters such as plant height, maturity, grain size, seed colour, disease resistance, and yield. A plant breeder studies this variation and selects the best plant from the available population. When the selected superior plant is self-pollinated generation after generation, its progeny becomes highly uniform and stable. This uniform and genetically similar group of plants is called a pure line. The concept of pure line selection has played a major role in the development of improved crop varieties. It helped breeders convert variable local populations into uniform and high-performing varieties. The method is simple, scientific, and economical, so it has remained a fundamental topic in plant breeding courses. For undergraduate stud...