Modern agriculture,
based on the improved single-genotype crop varieties and the intensive and
monocultural managements, has contributed tremendously to the world’s food supply.
However, it is also challenged by stagnant yield growth, increasingly high
input, mounting environmental pollution and pressing sustainability of
development. In comparison, old agriculture of 100 years ago, based on the
traditional multi-genotype landraces and low-input cultivation, prevailed
thousands of years and still exists now in subsistence farming in marginal areas
in spite of its low productivity. Crop multi-genotype breeding, which combines
the advantages of both old and modern agriculture at the high level of
productivity, will give us a promising strategy to break the predicament of
modern agriculture. The concept, necessity, principle, technical tactics and
characteristics of crop multi-genotype breeding are first elucidated in detail
here. Two successful cases of application in rice and cotton are presented.
Firstly, rice multi-genotype inbred varieties (colony variety) have commercialized
using MAGIC lines. In cotton, a multi-genotype hybrid variety Jing-Mi 1 revealed
superiority in seeded cotton and lint yields over the check variety in regional
trial. Multigenotype variety could be maintained and recover the genetic
diversity in production system. In their progenies of the MAGIC lines, most of them
could be transmitted to the multi-genotype varieties, implying that the genetic
diversity of agro-ecosystem could be effectively restored by crop multi-genotype
varieties. We believe crop multi-genotype breeding will make a substantial contribution
to restoring genetic diversity of agro-ecosystem, preventing the exacerbation
of vulnerable environment and promoting the sustainable development of agriculture.
We call for ever-increasing efforts to develop and apply the crop
multi-genotype breeding in agriculture.