Genetic improvement for improving nutritional quality in vegetable crops: A review

Nutritional deficiency is one of the major problems globally, especially in resource poor developing countries distressing the economical, social and personal growth simultaneously. Vegetables are an indispensable component of balanced diets as they provide different vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and phytonutrients required for growth and development of human beings; and are the best and cheapest sources of nutrients particularly to the vegetarians. During last century, the ever increasing population compelled agriculturists and plant breeders for intensive agriculture and development of high yielding varieties, respectively to increase productivity to feed the people. Presently, improving the nutrient concentration in edible plant parts has become a goal of plant/vegetable breeding because of the increasing public awareness towards human nutrition and health. Some land races, old varieties, pre-breeding lines and wild relatives are very good source of nutrients, generally governed by poly-genes and have ability to transfer the traits in elite background. Suitable poly-cross breeding approaches along with evaluation of large number of population would be the best to enhance the nutrient concentration in vegetables. Complementarily, the use of biotechnological tool and molecular marker–assisted selection will certainly expedite the pace and prospects of success for “nutrient biofortification” of vegetable crops.