Zahid Manzoor*1, Umbreen Shahzad2, Muhammad Sheeraz Qadir3, Muhammad Shah Jahan2, Zeshan Hassan2, Iqra Parveen2, Muhammad Shakeel Nawaz3, Ahsan Raza3, Zeba Shahnaz4, Memoona Bibi4, Uzma Aslam4, Iqra Khalid4, Shahid Nadeem4, Muhammad Yasir Khan4, Misbah Ghulam Rasool5
1National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China; 2College of Agriculture, University of Layyah, Pakistan; 3Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, Vegetable Research Station Karor, Layyah, Pakistan; 4Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan; 5Department of Botany, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan
*Corresponding Author: zahidmanzoor041@gmail.com
Crop improvement has been a vital goal as well as a challenge for human beings since modern cultivation. Farmers and breeders always tried to obtain higher-output food; therefore, they were initially focused on selecting the best-performing plants. They always adopted high-yielding crops and discarded the other types, resulting in a loss of genetic diversity. Developing breeding programs and utilizing crop genetic resources made it possible to achieve sustainable goals in food production and keep increased genetic diversity concerned at different gene banks. Modern plant breeding introduced ways to generate diversity in the crop germplasm, and these newly formed types can also be conserved along with parent lines, landraces, or wild types. So, in this review, we are focused on discussing the utilization and conservation of crop genetic resources using modern breeding tools and conservation strategies.