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Crossbreeding is the process of mating two strains of a particular plant or animal species to produce offspring that display desirable characteristics. This process remains popular within agriculture in particular, because of the phenomenon of heterosis (also known as hybrid vigor), which dictates that the hybrid offspring tend to perform better than their parents. However, mating the hybrid offspring as a new generation is generally less successful, and there is a need to retain the purity of the family line of the original parents for subsequent crossbreeding. Successful heterosis requires a suitable level of complementarity between the specimens. While most large cities of the world contain populations of crossbred dogs, which show the vigorous fertility of so many crossbreeding encounters, there are nevertheless limits to the ability of creatures to mate with each other and produce viable offspring. Further, the desirable characteristics identified by breeders may also be accompanied by less desirable characteristics which may not be immediately evident.
While crossbreeding is most commonly associated with agriculture and agronomy, it is used intensivly in animal performance industries, such as racehorse management and pet modeling. There is also an undercurrent of supposedly scientific research and ideology purporting to demonstrate the superiority of some groups of people over others and advocating the maintenance of the “purity” of human races.
In recent years, the issue of crossbreeding has received increased attention as part of the larger effort to modify the genetic material of plants or animals in desirable ways. This has enabled some hybrid plants to obtain the ability to fix nitrogen, for example. The intensive methods used in modern agriculture, combined with programs of crossbreeding and genetic manipulation, has led to significant levels of consumer unrest in some societies. Although crossbreeding and its related techniques can be used to improve the quality of products, marketing pressures often instead produce entirely homogeneous and tasteless items that are visually appealing but nutritionally inferior. The relative superiority of genetic manipulation in place of crossbreeding means that the latter has been largely supplanted in most parts of the world. However, it remains popular in industries in which individual animals or plants are of considerable economic value, for example among beef cows.
Bibliography:
- S. K. Banga, Hybrid Cultivar Development (Springer-Verlag, 1998);
- Amarjit S. Basra, , Heterosis and Hybrid Seed Production in Agronomic Crops (Haworth Press, 2000);
- Sandy Miller Hays, “How Now, Beef Cow?” Agricultural Research (v.39/11, 1991).
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