Breeding and Biotechnology of Tea and its Wild Species

Tea is one of the most important plantation crops, which is woody in nature and has a lifespan of more than 60 years. Many of its wild relatives known as Camellia are important floricultural plants. The tea breeding programme is limited to selection or natural hybridization due to several constraints (which will be described elaborately in the book). Therefore, biotechnological tools are of immense help for varietal improvement of tea. In the book, a detailed account of tea breeding procedure, limitations of conventional breeding, and flower and seed biology is presented. With the publication of the first research paper in 1960 on callus culture, biotechnological research on tea plant has evolved from the status of an orphan crop to a model woody commercial crop . A detailed study on the same is presented in this book. Micro propagation is an important tool for multiplication in woody plants. Extensive work has been done on tea, including field evaluation. The challenges as well as generic protocol of micropropagation of tea are discussed in detail. Similarly, studies on somatic embryogenesis from different species of Camellia are presented and their utilization for the production of transgenic tea plant is discussed, along with the experimental protocol. Various markers, such as morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and molecular markers, have been developed for tea and its wild relatives, which are elaborated in this book. Finally, certain areas such as gene cloning, functional genomics, proteomics, next generation sequencing, and bioinformatics are also explored for various basic studies of tea. The review of these techniques is discussed, which will be useful for other crops such as coffee, cocoa, rubber, etc.