Agnivesh Yadav

Stress Tolerant breeding in Summer Brinjal

Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) is an important vegetable crop widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions, where its productivity is significantly affected by various abiotic and biotic stresses such as drought, salinity, temperature extremes, and pests and diseases. Developing stress-tolerant cultivars is therefore essential to ensure sustainable production and food security. Stress-tolerant breeding in brinjal involves the identification and utilization of diverse genetic resources, including landraces and wild relatives, possessing inherent tolerance traits. Conventional breeding approaches such as selection, hybridization, and heterosis breeding have been effectively employed to improve stress resilience. In recent years, advanced tools such as molecular markers, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, marker-assisted selection (MAS), and genomic approaches have accelerated the breeding process by enabling precise selection of stress-responsive traits.