T. Vijay, M.S. Hanif, N. Asif, B. Srikanth, R. G. Roy Smart, breeding , genomic,NGS 143-146 2 (5) September, 2026 For most of the last century, plant breeding was a numbers game played out in the field. A breeder crossed two promising parents, grew out thousands of progeny, and waited often three to five years to see which plants flowered earlier, yielded more, or shrugged off disease. Selection depended on what the eye could see and the yardstick could measure. It worked, but it was slow, and it could only act on traits that had already shown up in the plant.