Crop Breeding is a compulsory professional development core course and a core professional course for plant production majors such as agronomy, plant science and technology, seed science and engineering, as well as a professional development elective course for biotechnology and plant protection.

Crop varieties play a primary role in various agricultural science, technology and production system. Crop breeding is a science and technology about the theory and method of breeding to develop crop varieties. It combines and develops the theory and practice that people have summarized and developed in long-term production activities and scientific experiments. It is a comprehensive applied science based on genetics and evolution. The basic task of crop breeding is, firstly, to explore, study and utilize relevant crop germplasm resources on the basis of studying, and secondly, to master the genetic variation laws of crop traits, and thirdly, to adopt appropriate breeding methods to improve the genetic qualities of crop varieties and the genetic makeup of the population, so as to breed excellent varieties.

The content of this online course covers the basic principles, methods and techniques of crop breeding, absorbs the frontier research results of crop breeding. The breeding objective will combine high yield, high quality and stress resistance; the breeding theory combines traditional breeding theory with population genetics, quantitative genetics and molecular combination of genetic theory; breeding selection combine traditional phenotypic selection with genotype selection, morphological characteristic selection and physiological characteristic selection; breeding methods range from crop introduction, selection breeding, cross breeding, backcross breeding,mutagenic breeding to ployploid, haplotypes, and modern biotechnology breeding such as cell engineering, genetic engineering, molecular markers, etc.

The course is designed for each teaching link, and provides diverse teaching resources such as teaching videos, courseware, exercises, assignments, quizzes, topic discussions, and extended reading online. It is divided into 17 chapters, 60 learning units, and a single video 5 - 15 minutes, the total video duration is 480 minutes, and the knowledge content is displayed to students through multiple forms, multiple levels, and multiple angles. Students can easily learn on the network platform. Teachers can effectively manage and guide students' online self-directed learning, interact with students online, answer questions. By adopting a combination of online learning and classroom teaching, such as mixed teaching and flipped classroom teaching modes, it is possible to realize student-centered teaching and learning, shifting from "transmission-acceptance" of knowledge to "independent-exploration-cooperation" learning mode.

The course content system is complete, the teaching design is reasonable, the course resources are rich, the network platform resources are complete and continuously updated which can meet the needs of online learning and mixed teaching. It can be used for students of plant production and related majors in and outside the school, as well as engaged in crop breeding, people in the society who work in seed, agricultural technology promotion, etc.

The course is produced by the crop breeding teaching team of Southwest University. The team members have long been engaged in scientific research and teaching of crop breeding. They have high academic and teaching levels, relying on the key disciplines of crop science in Chongqing, the national double-first-class construction discipline, and Engineering Center of Southern Mountain Agriculture Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Biotechnology and Crop Quality Improvement, Ministry of Agriculture, and other platforms. The course has won the online open courses of excellent quality in Chongqing universities.

This course is based on the talent training concept of "based on comprehensiveness, based on specialty, and attributed to individuality", centered on the cultivation of students' innovative ability and comprehensive quality, and cultivates high-quality compound and top-notch innovative talents who "care about agriculture, rural areas and farmers and stand upright". Crop Breeding is the core professional curriculum for agronomy, plant science and technology. This course takes the online and offline hybrid teaching mode as the core, adopts student-participatory teaching methods, reforms the course assessment method, implements morality and cultivation, integrates ideological and political education, realizes new functions of curriculum education, and creates a new agricultural "golden course" ". Through the study of this course, students will be able to master the basic concepts, basic principles, and methods and approaches of crop breeding, and be able to apply crop science and related knowledge to judge, analyze and research problems in the professional field. Through course teaching, cultivate students' abilities and qualities in autonomous learning, critical thinking, and teamwork.

Course Name: (Chinese): Crop Breeding (English): Principles of Crop Breeding

Course Category: Subject Professional Course/Required Course

Applicable major: Agronomy major

Course hours: 48

Course credits: 3

Prerequisite courses: general genetics, plant physiology, plant biochemistry, etc.

Attached experiment description: See the independent experiment course "Crop Science Experiment" for related experiments of crop breeding

课程资源：

1.西南大学作物育种学在线课程：

https://mooc1.chaoxing.com/course/template60/200426399.html

2.南京农业大学作物育种学在线课程：

https://www.icourse163.org/course/NJAU-1001753042

3.  中国农业大学作物育种学在线课程：

选用教材：

《作物育种学》，孙其信主编，高等教育出版社，2011年第1版

主要参考书目：

1．《作物育种学总论》，张天真主编，中国农业出版社，2011年第3版

2．《作物育种原理》，杨光圣、员海燕主编，科学出版社，2009年第1版

3. Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding. Editor-in-chief: George Acquaah, 2ed Blackwell, 2012

4. Molecular Plant Breeding. Editor-in-chief: Yunbi Xu, CABI, 2012