Experimentation in Plant Breeding MCQs

1. Which of the following experimental designs is commonly used in plant breeding to test the effect of different varieties or treatments?
(A) Factorial design
(B) Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD)
(C) Split-plot design
(D) Latin square design

2. In plant breeding, what is the purpose of conducting a diallel cross experiment?
(A) To test the genetic purity of the plant varieties
(B) To assess the heterosis or hybrid vigor in a set of crosses
(C) To determine the best breeding method for a crop species
(D) To evaluate the environmental interaction of different plant varieties

3. What is the key advantage of using a genetic variance analysis in plant breeding experiments?
(A) It helps in determining the ideal planting density for crop varieties
(B) It quantifies the contribution of different genetic components to the phenotype
(C) It measures the yield potential of different varieties in a given environment
(D) It identifies the disease resistance of different plant varieties

4. In a plant breeding experiment, the term “broad-sense heritability” (H²) refers to:
(A) The proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to additive genetic variance
(B) The proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to both additive and non-additive genetic variance
(C) The proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to environmental factors
(D) The genetic relationship between the parent and the progeny

5. What is the primary purpose of conducting a backcross in plant breeding?
(A) To test the genetic purity of a variety
(B) To introduce new traits from a donor parent into an elite variety
(C) To identify the best combination of genetic traits in a population
(D) To select superior inbred lines from a population

6. In a plant breeding experiment, if two parents exhibit high general combining ability (GCA), what does this imply?
(A) The parents produce low-quality hybrids
(B) The parents are likely to have high heterosis when crossed
(C) The parents can be used in crosses to produce high-yielding progeny
(D) The parents have low genetic diversity

7. What does reciprocal cross experimentation help determine in plant breeding?
(A) The environmental impact on genetic inheritance
(B) The impact of cytoplasmic inheritance on trait expression
(C) The genetic purity of the seed stock
(D) The influence of mating systems on the offspring

8. In plant breeding, what is the purpose of mass selection?
(A) To select a few elite individuals from a population based on specific traits
(B) To select plants with the highest genetic diversity
(C) To choose the highest yielding variety for seed production
(D) To select plants based on their visual characteristics only

9. Which type of mutation is intentionally induced in plants during mutagenesis experiments in plant breeding?
(A) Silent mutations
(B) Lethal mutations
(C) Beneficial mutations for trait improvement
(D) Random mutations for genetic diversity

10. Which of the following is the most appropriate breeding method for improving traits that are controlled by polygenic inheritance?
(A) Inbreeding
(B) Mass selection
(C) Hybridization
(D) Mutation breeding

11. Which of the following breeding methods would be most appropriate for developing a variety of maize with improved drought tolerance and high yield potential?
(A) Mutation breeding
(B) Marker-assisted selection (MAS)
(C) Reciprocal crossing
(D) Inbreeding

12. In testcross experiments, what is the main objective?
(A) To determine the genotype of an individual with an unknown genetic composition
(B) To assess the quality of seed production in hybrid varieties
(C) To evaluate the genetic diversity of a population
(D) To improve the visual characteristics of a plant

13. In plant breeding, what does the term “heterosis” (hybrid vigor) refer to?
(A) The improved performance of a hybrid compared to its parents
(B) The genetic uniformity within a hybrid population
(C) The increase in mutation rate during hybridization
(D) The reduction of traits from the parental lines

14. In conventional breeding, the method used for transferring specific traits from one plant to another is called:
(A) Genetic engineering
(B) Hybridization
(C) Polyploidy
(D) Biolistics

15. Which of the following statistical tools is most commonly used to analyze the genetic improvement of quantitative traits in plant breeding?
(A) Correlation analysis
(B) Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
(C) Cluster analysis
(D) Path coefficient analysis