Brassica oilseeds have become a significant agricultural product during the past 30 years and are now the world s third-leading source of both vegetable oil (after soybean and oil palm) and oil meal (after soybean and cotton). In Europe and Asia oilseed rape (predominantly from Brassica napus L.) is today the most important source of vegetable oil for human nutrition and as a renewable fuel. The dramatic increase in demand for Brassica oils places increasing pressure on plant breeders to continuously improve seed and oil yields, the overall agronomical performance and the quality of the oil and of the meal that remains after oil extraction.Molecular genetic techniques today play an important role in breeding strategies for improvement of all major agricultural crops. On the one hand, marker-assisted breeding can potentially reduce the time and cost of trait introgression. On the other hand, genome analysis tools provide a means to dissect and better understand complex traits, and to isolate, characterise and ultimately utilise the responsible genes.The work described here focuses on the development and application of genome analysis tools for molecular breeding and trait dissection in Brassica oilseed crops. The introduction gives an overview of the current status and future trends in production, breeding, genetics and genomics. Chapters 2 to 6 present one invited review article and nine original scientific articles that provide diverse examples for genome analysis and molecular breeding in oilseed rape, based on molecular genetic and molecular cytogenetic techniques. In Chapter 7 this work is summarised in the context of worldwide molecular breeding and genomics of Brassica oilseeds, including an outlook on future work incorporating current developments in high-throughput genomics and next-generation sequencing. Chapter 10 lists nine additional book chapters or monographs, a further 24 original scientific articles in reviewed journals, and five additional review articles. These publications cover a broad range of topics related to molecular genetics and genome analysis in Brassica oilseeds and other species.
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