Improving Color Sources by Plant Breeding and Cultivation

摘要: Profitable natural pigment production in the form of pure compounds or concentrates requires high-quality plant sources. Plant breeding is a time-consuming process crop improvement resulting new cultivars desired characteristics that are suitable for agricultural production. Demands industry materials must be combined with needs farmers high yield. Progress cultivar development depends on many factors, including reproductive biology, trait heritability, existing genetic variation, agrotechnical practices, and environmental conditions. In this chapter, we discuss these related aspects plants improved sources pigments. We have focused our chapter three separate case studies vegetable crops: tomato, beetroot, carrot, representing most important industrial major classes carotenoids (lycopene), betalain, anthocyanin production, respectively. These fruit root crops differ their life cycle they exhibit diverse biosynthetic pathways The depth knowledge genes involved varies crops. addition, biennial carrot beetroot make progress more challenging. Advances molecular techniques facilitate conventional avenues inquiry been opened from genome sequencing approaches.