Abstract

The breeding system in forage plants is quite different than the cultivated cereals, since many grasses are perennial in nature. The diversity in tropical grasses has all three types of sexual, asexual, clonal modes of reproduction and depending upon the mode of reproduction methods to be choose was always the priorities. Presence of apomictic system also gives advantage of that hybrid vigour can be fixed. Although in most of the grasses direct selection has been resulted in the cultivar development which assured 80 to 130 % more productive for green fodder yield, 26 % increase in digestibility, but availability of sexual lines in some grasses has opened the avenue for recombination breeding. Understanding the apomixis component and development of marker system for identification of genomic region govern by apomixis mechanism. In this context, some recent studies to understand the phenomenon of apomixes has been carried out in different species viz. Paspalum notatum, Cenchrus ciliaris, Panicum maximum, Pennisetum clandestinum, etc. Producing the higher dry matter yield and with nutritious quality both objective might be negatively correlated, but the primary need is to maximum yield of metabolizable energy. Approaches are now also diverted towards bringing desirable improvement in quality attributes in the tropical grasses to make them suitable for silage making and encouraging results have been obtained. Applying precision breeding for improvement and development of tropical forage varieties will continue and powered by developments in marker- ssisted selection, genome mapping and introgression. Genetic manipulation through crosses, poly- ploidization, mutation etc. remains a potentially useful approach to generate genetic variability. Constraints in breeding need to be shorten through collaboration among the institutes. This paper present a details of the strategies to be adopted for the improvement of tropical grasses to fulfil the future requirement.