Enhancing genetic gains through marker-assisted recurrent selection: from phenotyping to genotyping

Phenotypic selection, for accumulating the desirable characters to develop the crops tailored as per our need, has been the basis of the plant breeding since the time immemorial. But with the several issues associated with this approach viz., huge time, resource and space intensive approach, researchers are on continuous journey to explore more efficient approach with high throughput that could substantially deduct the time and resource requirement with high fidelity. With the advent of several molecular markers, newer avenue of the crop improvement has been explored and marker-assisted recurrent selection stand out to be an intensive approach, which has provided the breeder an efficient tool to use his skills more rigorously. Shortening the time while enhancing the selection efficiency and, thus improving the overall genetic gain has made this approach the need of the hour and choice of the breeders. This review takes you to the journey of its advent and its potential role in population improvement in both self- and cross-pollinated crops.