Breeding for Enhanced Root Traits to Improve Soil Carbon Sequestration | Chapter 10 | Agricultural Sciences: Techniques and Innovations Vol. 5

 

One of the most serious issues that the world is facing today is global warming. The increase of CO2 is one of the major causes of global warming. Efforts have been made to reduce the emission of carbon and also to discover ways to sequester atmospheric CO2. Soil carbon sequestration is one of the vital mechanisms that can reduce the effect of rising temperatures of the earth by absorbing atmospheric carbon. The root architecture of crop plants, when modified through breeding techniques for carbon sequestration, plays a role in reducing global warming. This chapter focuses on the various root characteristics that can contribute to soil carbon storage for a longer period of time. For instance, perenniality of crops influences a longer and more stable root system, which can serve for long-term carbon storage. The conventional breeding techniques have some disadvantages when it comes to breeding for root traits for carbon sequestration. Here, various new breeding approaches such as phenotyping, molecular breeding, genomic prediction, QTL, GWAS, metagenomics, etc. have been discussed in brief that can be used for breeding of crop varieties with enhanced root traits for soil carbon storage. Also, the various constraints related to it and the future prospects are discussed here.

 

 

Author(s) Details

Sanjukta Saikia
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Assam Agricultural University, India.

 

Gobin Ch. Bora
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Assam Agricultural University, India.

 

Debananda Rajbongshi
Department of Soil Science, Assam Agricultural University, India.

 

Shreya Sarmah
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Assam Agricultural University, India.

 

Anwesha Bhattacharyya
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Assam Agricultural University, India.

 

Please see the book here :- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/asti/v5/6561