This document discusses speed breeding, a technique to accelerate crop breeding cycles. Traditional breeding can take many years to develop new varieties while meeting future food demands poses challenges. Speed breeding uses controlled environmental conditions like extended photoperiod and supplemental lighting to complete multiple generations in a year. Case studies show this approach led wheat and barley to flower in half the time and generated 5 soybean generations per year. Speed breeding holds potential to rapidly develop climate-resilient varieties on a smaller scale while combining with genomics and other innovations.

1. Sanjay Kumar Sanadya
Ph.D. Scholar (GPB)
GP 691
Speed Breeding- A Powerful
tool to accelerate Crop
Breeding

2. Introduction
Population rise Climate change Urbanization
Land degradation
Pressure on Food
Supply
Meeting future
food demand is
CHALLENGE..!

3. Traditional
Breeding
(Years)
Bulk
method
(17-20)
Pedigree
method
(13-14)
Mass
selection
(8)
Synthetics
(7)
Composite
(8)
Pureline &
Clonal
selection
(10)
Backcross
method
(12-13)
A B

4. Speed Breeding
 In the early 1980s, NASA’s efforts to grow wheat
on Space Station.
 Coined term by teams of University of Queensland
and University of Sydney, Australia (2003)
 It is a technology which shortens the breeding
cycle and accelerates crop research through
rapid generation advancement (RGA).

5. Speed Breeding
Shorten breeding
cycle
Doubled Haploid
Breeding
Marker Assisted
Breeding
Rapid Generation
Advancement

6. Androgenesis
Chromosome elimination
Mediated

7. Marker Assisted Selection Genomic Selection

8. Comparison of timeline required to develop F6 fixed lines using these strategies
Rapid Generation Advancement
Rapid
Generation
Advancement
Speed up the
breeding cycle (4-
6
generations/year)
Less area
&
laborious
Acceleration
of genetic
gain
Controlled
condition

9. Factors
Light
Photoperiod
PGRs
CO2/ O3
Conc.
Soil
factors
Humidity
Temperature

10. Wheat growing at University of Queensland
by Speed Breeding

11. The biologically inactive form of phytochrome (Pr) is converted to the biologically active
form Pfr under illumination with red light. Far-red light and darkness convert the molecule
back to the inactive form.
Photoperiod in plants

12. Use of helio spectral LED Reducing operating cost
using LED
High pressure sodium vapour
lamps
Supplementary light system

13. Downs 1980

14. Drying in oven/dehydrator

15. Breeder’s equation
Genetic gain over time
Selection Intensity
Years per cycle
Voss-Fels et al. 2018
28 %
20 %
6.7 t/ha
37 %
42 %
2

16. Facilities
for RGA
Phytotron
Off season
nursery
Green
house

17. Off season nursery
Crop Off- season location
Rice Odisha & TS
Wheat TN, HP
Maize UK, UP, TS & Bihar
Pulses HP
Chickpea KN & J & K
Brassica species HP
Pearl Millet TS & TN
Two crop season per year
Required large scale area
Environment sensitive
Off Season Nursery Rice at NRRI, Cuttack
Off Season Nursery Wheat at Lahaul and Spiti, HP

18. Greenhouse Phytotron Facility
CSK HPKV, Palampur

19. Phytotron
• Term coined by F.W. Went (1949)
• Complex form of Green house
• Environmentally controlled facility
• Consisting incubators, seed germination chambers,
photoperiod rooms and refrigerated room
• Several environmental factors can be studied
simultaneously

21. Phytotron and its variants
Phytotron
Earhart
Plant
Research
Laboratory,
California
(1949)
National
Phytotron
Facility,
New Delhi
(1997)
AU,
Jodhpur
(2021)
RapidGen,
ICRISAT,
Hyderabad
CSK
HPKV,
Palampur
(2021)
Variants
Climatron,
Missouri
Ecotron,
London
Brisatron,
South
Carolina
Biotron,
Madison
2700 m2 Area
22 growth
chambers
10 greenhouses

23. Ghosh et al. (2018)
SPEED BREEDING GLASSHOUSE
CONTROL
WHEAT
BARLEY
CHICKPEA
CANOLA

24. a) Wheat (T. aestivum cv.
Cadenza) at 38 days post
sowing
b) Barley at 41 days post
sowing
c) Diploid Oat (A. strigosa) at
52 days after sowing
d) Canola at 50 days post
sowing
e) Chickpea at 35 days post
sowing
Watson et al. (2018)
Speed breeding works with different crops
f
Oat
c
Speed breeding (left) and controlled conditions (right)

25. Case study -1
Genotypes of spring wheat, durum wheat, barley and Brachypodium distachyon were grown
in controlled environmental conditions with extended photoperiod and compared with
glasshouse having no supplementary light and heating.
Method

26. Speed breeding methods

27. Results
Method -1
• Anthesis in approximately half the time than those in greenhouse
• Viability of mature seeds not affected
• Healthy no. of spikes/plant
• Seed count per spike decreased but not significantly
Method- 2
• More spikes in wheat than normal conditions
• Grain no. unaffected by rapid development in wheat and barley
• Seed viability – either unaffected or improved
Method – 3
• Equivalent effect as compare to Method-1 including small no. of population
• However requires less area
• Permits 4-5 generation per year

28. Case study -2
Presented a speed breeding protocol based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that allow to modify light quality,
and demonstrate its effectiveness for the short-day crops Soybean (Glycine max), Rice (Oryza sativa) and
Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) by adjusting the photoperiod to 10 hours and 14 hours dark
Method

29. Soybean - Flowered 23 days after sowing and matured within 77 days = 5 generations per year.
- No impact of far-red light on flowering
- Blue light enriched and far-red deprived light spectrum useful
RESULTS

30. Flowering in rice - 60 days
after sowing
Flowering in amaranth - 35
days after sowing.
Advanced flowering in Rice - 10 days
Amaranth – 20 days
Highlighting the importance of light quality
for speed breeding protocols
Use of far-red
light

31. 1st wheat variety using speed breeding – DS Faraday
 Introduced from landraces of China and
Africa
 High protein
 Milling wheat
 Tolerant to pre harvest sprouting (novel trait
in Australia)

32. Benefits of Speed Breeding for Plant Research
• Used to rapidly generate fixed populations through SSD, which
in some species may be cheaper than generating double
haploids, for subsequent field evaluation and selection
• Reduce varietal development period
• Suitable for diverse germplasm
• Many diverse homozygous lines can be produced at a time
• Reduce cost and space requirements
• Little effect on seed quality or quantity, and even on
phenotype
• Detailed study of Plant pathogen interactions

33. • Combine with conventional breeding
• Acceleration of transgenic crops
• Genomic selection with SB
• Combine with genome editing
technique
• Phenotyping for qualitative traits
• SB for numerous horticultural crops
Opportunities Challenges & limitations
• High initial investment
• Phenotyping for seed traits
• No universal protocol

34. • SB is a new approach to develop new crop varieties faster
• Meet future food demands
• Climate-resilient crops
• High-throughput phenotyping and genotyping
• Require small area
• SB can combine with other innovative technologies to get result
faster
• Extend to other disciplines
CONCLUSION

35. THANK YOU