Speed breeding: a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding

Watson and Ghosh et al. describe protocols to accelerate the lifecycle of several crop species using “speed breeding”, which essentially involves extending the daylength to 22 hours with supplemental lighting. They describe methods and results from glasshouse and growth chamber speed breeding. In spite of greatly shortened generation times, seed production was similar for the conventional and accelerated plants, making this a promising approach with which to develop new varieties. bioRxiv 10.1101/161182