Question

By which of the following methods, new and better varieties of plants can be formed?

• A. Selection
• B. Grafting
• C. Hybridization
• D. Hybridization followed by selection

Answer 1

The correct option is D Hybridization followed by selection

As a part of agriculture, man started rearing plants and animals to meet his requirements. This is when humans started to learn how to influence the process of natural evolution, so as to breed plant or animals. Slowly and gradually, this process of expedited evolution, through selection and cultivation of plants, acquired the form of a routine endeavour, what we today call as plant breeding. In this, heredity, which refers to the passage of various characteristic features from the main plant (the parent) to the plantlets (the progeny), plays an important role. The effects of heredity had been apparent to early man and he had taken advantage of them ever since the advent of agriculture. Various methods have evolved in plant breeding. One of the most important methods is that of selection. Here, a pure lines with desirable characters can be selected as parent plants and then this plants can be hybridized to get the good qualities of both parents in offsprings. Thus, option D is correct. Selection or hybridization alone cannot create better varieties. Thus, option A and C are wrong. Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called as inosculation. By this method better varieties can not be formed

Thus, option B is wrong

So, the correct answer is 'Hybridization followed by selection'