You are a botanist working in the area of plant breeding. Describe the various steps that you will undertake to release a new variety.

The main steps in breeding a new genetic variety of a crop are.
i) Collection of Variability :
* Genetic variability is the root of any breeding programme. Collection and preservation of all different wild varieties, species and relatives of cultivated species is a prerequisite for effective exploitation of natural genes available in the populations.
* The entire collection having all the diverse alleles for all genes in a given crop is called 'Germplasm collection'.
* The germplasm is evaluated so as to identify plants with desirable characters. The selected plants are multiplied and are used. Pure lines are created whenever desirable and possible.
iii) Cross hybridisation among the selected parents :
* After emasculation the female flowers are enclosed in a polythene bag to prevent undesired cross pollination. Pollengrains are collected from the male parent with the help of a brush and are transfered to the surface of the stigma and thus cross pollination is affected artificially.
iv) Selection and Testing of Superior recombinants :
* It involves selecting among the progeny of hybrids, those plants that have the desired character combination. The selection process requires careful scientific evaluation of the progeny. Due to this, plants that are superior to both the parents are obtained. These are self pollinated for several generations till they reach a homozygosity.
v) Testing, release and commercialisation of new characters :
* The newly selected lines are evaluated for their yield and other traits of quality, disease resistance etc. It is done by growing these in research fields and recording their performance under ideal fertilizer application, irrigation and other crop management practices. It is followed by testing the materials in farmers fields for atleast three growing seasons at several places in the country, in all agronomic zones. Finally they are distributed as a new variety.