Ensuring food security for a rapidly growing world population will need new approaches. These include speed breeding and new breeding technologies, which have been established for major staple crops. Improvement of woody perennial fruit tree species has progressed at a much slower pace and has met many obstacles. Yet fruit production will face major challenges with climate change, such as the loss of winter chilling needed for flowering, a potential decrease in pollinator availability, and increasing pest and disease problems.

Full text PDF download