Harnessing speed breeding for next-generation crop improvement through biotechnological platforms

The current challenge facing global agricultural systems is the increase in food demand against the background of climate change, reduction of arable land and emerging pests and diseases. In such circumstances, speed breeding has been a promising approach to achieve a faster rate of crop improvement by significantly reducing the generation time and enabling the development of better cultivars within a short period of time. Speed breeding depends on environmental interventions, such as long days, light spectrum optimization, environmental temperature control and humidity, to accelerate plant development and flowering, thus enabling several generations to be grown on an annual basis without any loss of genetic integrity. This review describes the novel biotechnological tools such as genome editing by CRISPR/Cas, doubled haploid and high-throughput phenotyping, which increases the effectiveness of speed breeding programs. Integration of these tools has supported the development of cultivars with improved disease resistance, stress tolerance, and nutritional quality. Speed breeding can be seen in different types of oilseed crops viz. canola, groundnut and soybean, cereal crops viz. wheat, rice and barley and vegetable crops viz. tomato, lettuce and cabbage. This review examines how rapid breeding can be integrated with advanced breeding tools to improve the efficiency and precision of crop improvement.