GENETICAL AND PLANT BREEDING POSSIBILITIES FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF VEGETABLES

Vegetables are an important source of many of the essential human nutrients.
In the developed countries of the world, vegetables furnish vitamins, minerals and bulk to the diet; in the developing nations, they are often a primary source of protein as well.

Considerable effort has been directed at increasing yield, developing insect resistance, improving cosmetic qualities, and altering vegetables to facilitate ease in mechanical handling.
By comparison, little has been done to increase the nutritional quality.
In a few cases, variability for a nutritional character has been noted, and some determinations of degree of heritability have been made.
Very few breeding programs have systematically attempted to increase nutritional quality.
The significance of vegetables to the U.S. diet is listed in table 1.

This paper will focus primarily on those basic nutrients which have been or are currently being investigated by plant breeders.
These are vegetable proteins, vitamin A and vitamin C.

Symposium on Quality of Vegetables

W.H. Gabelman, S. Peters

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1979.93.24