The first part of this book “Principles of Vegetable Breeding” has been structured with 17 chapters detailing history of vegetable breeding, origin and domestication, reproductive features and pollination control mechanisms, general breeding methods for sexually and asexually propagated crops, breeding for high temperature stress, disease resistance and product quality, heterosis breeding, mutation breeding, breeding through alteration of ploidy, ideotype breeding, procedure for release of a variety, intellectual property rights and biotechnological approaches for vegetable breeding. The second part “Practices of vegetable breeding” has been framed on the details of 24 vegetable crops under all the reproductive feature group pertaining to their origin, taxonomy, distribution, crop botany and floral biology, reproductive behaviour, genetics of important traits with published gene list, breeding objective, germplasm resource, breeding methods and breeding achievement highlighting the released varieties of the public sector. Important references have been provided at the end of each chapter which will be helpful for the post graduate and doctoral level students.

This book follows the syllabi prescribed by ICAR for B.Sc. Hons. (Ag.), B.Sc. Hons. (Hort.), M.Sc (Ag.), M.Sc (Hort.) and Doctoral degree programmes in Vegetable Science particularly Genetics and Breeding of vegetable crops. Authors’ long experience acquired through teaching and research on different aspects of vegetable breeding was put together to structure this book.

Pranab Hazra: M.Sc. (Ag), Ph.D. Professor, Department of Vegetable Science, Former Dean, Faculty of Horticulture and Dean, Post Graduate Studies, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741252, West Bengal. Former visiting Scientist (Sofia, Bulgaria; Athens, Greece); Fellow, FAO, Indian Academy of Horticultural Science, Indian Society of Vegetable Science and International Society for Noni Science and Member of National Academy of Science, India. Recipient of Gold medal of Indian Academy of Horticultural Science and Dr. Kirti Singh Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award of Indian Society of Vegetable Science.

Arup Chattopadhyay: M.Sc. (Ag), Ph.D. Professor and Head, Department of Vegetable Science, Faculty of Horticulture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741252, West Bengal. Former Officer-in-Charge in All India Coordinated Research Project on Vegetable Crops. Recipient of first Dwarika Nath Gold Medal Award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Vegetable Science conferred by Indian Society of Vegetable Science, Lt. Amit Singh Memorial Award for the Best Coordinating Centre of AICRP on Vegetable Crops in India conferred by ICAR, International Research Awards on Science, Health and Engineering SHEN. Fellow, Indian Society of Vegetable Science and Crop and Weed Science Society, BCKV, Mohanpur, West Bengal.

Soham Hazra: M.Sc. (Ag), Ph.D. Assistant Professor in Genetics and Plant Breeding and Head, Department of Agriculture, Brainware University, Barasat, West Bengal, India. He pursued his doctoral degree programme as a Senior Research Fellow under the Department of Atomic Energy, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre- sponsored research project. His prominent research achievement includes isolation of YVMV resistant lines of okra through applied mutagenesis. He has published 20 research papers in SCI and SCOPUS indexed journal, co-authored 5 book chapters, 1 book and several popular articles. He has been awarded with 3 best paper presentations in International and National Conferences and has acted as peer reviewer to several scientific journals of repute. He is the recipient of ‘Eminent Scientist’ Award-2024 by the Society for Plant Research, Vegetos: An International Journal of Plant Research & Biotechnology.

Chapter 1: Importance and History of Vegetable Breeding

Chapter 2: Origin, Domestication, Evolution and Variability of Vegetable Crops

Chapter 3: Reproduction, Mode of Pollination, Inbreeding Depression and Deviation of Sexual Reproduction

Chapter 4: Genetically Governed Pollination Control Mechanisms

Chapter 5: Genetic Basis of Plant Breeding

Chapter 6: Methods of Vegetable Breeding: Introduction, Selection, Hybridization and Selection

Chapter 7: Mutation Breeding

Chapter 8: Breeding through Alteration of Ploidy Level

Chapter 9: Heterosis and Development of Hybrids

Chapter 10: Breeding Vegetable Crops for Quality Traits

Chapter 11: Breeding for Disease Resistance

Chapter 12: Abiotic Stress, Physiology and Management

Chapter 13: Breeding for High Temperature Stress

Chapter 14: Ideotype breeding

Chapter 15: Procedures for Release and Notification of Varieties

Chapter 16: Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

Chapter 17: Agricultural Biotechnology in Vegetable Breeding