NEET Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production Previous Year Questions with Solutions

Inbreeding refers to the mating of more closely related individuals within the same breed for 4–6 generations. It increases homozygosity ($AA$ or $aa$):

When close inbreeding is practiced continuously without outcrossing, deleterious recessive alleles accumulate and vigor declines, resulting in inbreeding depression:

NCERT states under Animal Breeding: "However, continued inbreeding, especially close inbreeding, usually reduces fertility and even productivity. This is called inbreeding depression. Whenever this becomes a problem, selected animals of the breeding population should be mated with unrelated superior animals of the same breed."

Mutation breeding is the process of breeding crops by inducing mutations artificially using chemical or physical mutagens, followed by screening and selection of plants with desirable agronomic traits:

High-energy ionizing radiation—specifically gamma rays (typically emitted by Cobalt-60 sources)—penetrates plant tissues, generating free radicals and causing single- and double-strand breaks in chromosomal DNA:

In mung bean (*Vigna radiata*), resistance to Yellow Mosaic Virus ($YMV$) and powdery mildew was induced through mutation breeding using gamma irradiation.

Analyzing the specific scientific correspondence for each biotechnology technique:

Matching (a)-(ii) immediately eliminates Options (1), (3), and (4). Cross-checking (b)-(i), (c)-(iv), and (d)-(iii) confirms Option (2) is completely and uniquely correct.

Over 840 million people worldwide suffer from insufficient food intake, and far more suffer from "hidden hunger" (deficiencies in micronutrients, iron, vitamin A, iodine, and zinc). Biofortification is the breeding of staple crops with elevated levels of vitamins, minerals, proteins, or healthier fatty acids to directly enhance human nutritional security.

- Plant breeding for disease resistance (e.g., Himgiri wheat resistant to leaf and stripe rust; Pusa Swarnim mustard resistant to white rust) is engineered to prevent yield loss from phytopathogens (fungi, bacteria, viruses). - Disease resistance confers agronomic protection to the plant, whereas biofortification improves dietary nutritive density for human consumption.

Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer Technology (MOET) is an advanced herd improvement programme used to rapidly multiply high-milk-yielding females and high-quality-lean-meat bulls: - Step 1 (Hormonal Induction of Superovulation): A superior genetic mother cow is injected with gonadotropins possessing FSH-like activity (e.g. equine chorionic gonadotropin or pituitary FSH). This drives the synchronous maturation of multiple Graafian follicles, yielding 6 to 8 ova (superovulation) instead of the solitary ovum normally shed in an estrous cycle. - Step 2 (Fertilization): The superovulated cow is either mated with an elite pedigree bull or artificially inseminated using high-grade semen. - Step 3 (Non-Surgical Embryo Recovery): At the 8 to 32 cell stage (morula/early blastocyst), the developing embryos are non-surgically flushed and harvested using a catheter. - Step 4 (Transfer to Surrogates): The harvested embryos are transferred into lower-genetic-merit surrogate recipient cows, while the genetic mother is freed for another superovulation cycle.

Luteinizing Hormone (LH) induces ovulation of a mature follicle and luteinization of the ruptured follicle into a corpus luteum. LH cannot stimulate multiple immature primordial/primary follicles to grow and mature; that is the unique physiological role of FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone). Therefore, claiming that hormones with LH-like activity are administered for superovulation is physiologically and canonically false.

In cross-breeding, superior males of one breed are mated with superior females of another breed. This approach allows desirable qualities of two different breeds to be combined into a new stable commercial breed.

Hisardale is a well-known new breed of sheep developed in Punjab by crossing Bikaneri ewes with exotic Merino rams.

Out-crossing involves mating animals of the same breed that have no common ancestors on either side of pedigree up to 4-6 generations. Interspecific hybridization involves mating males and females of two different related species (e.g., mule = female horse × male donkey).

Since Bikaneri and Merino are two distinct breeds of sheep, this is a textbook example of cross-breeding.