Breeding techniques for quality improvement and processing characters in Vegetable Crops

Vegetables are considered as protective food because of various vitamins, minerals and antioxidants present in them. In India systematic vegetable improvement work was started in the 1970‟s and since then India has improved tremendously in terms of vegetable production with respect to world ranking and ranks 2nd after China. Almost all the varieties of public domain have been evolved with various special characteristics through conventional breeding approach but with the recognition of various biotechnological tools for genetic improvement of crops, emphasis is being given on the integrated approach of vegetable improvement. As conventional breeding approach of improvement has been realized a slow process of genetic improvement which improves genome in an uncontrolled fashion with more number of generations to assemble and fix the desirable traits while, biotechnological approach allow introgression of a single distinct gene without linkage drag. The producer of vegetables for processing in the next ten years must be highly competitive and efficient. Quality of processed foods has always included purity, color, size, texture and flavor. In a more international market it also must include consistency, suggesting perhaps a uniform grading system, unless the processor's label is an accepted seal of quality.