What is the term used to describe choosing specific parents to get desirable characteristics in offspring?

The term that describes the practice of choosing specific parents to obtain desirable characteristics in their offspring is referred to as selective breeding. This technique allows agricultural producers to enhance certain traits in plants and animals by carefully selecting which individuals are mated or crossed based on desirable characteristics. For instance, a farmer may select plants that produce larger fruits or animals that exhibit improved growth rates, thereby perpetuating these traits in the subsequent generation.

Selective breeding has been pivotal in agriculture because it enables the development of varieties and breeds that are better suited to the environment, more productive, or more resilient to diseases. It is fundamentally based on the natural variation already present in the population, allowing for the enhancement of traits over generations without altering the genetic material through direct manipulation, which would be the process involved in genetic modification.

The other options represent different techniques within plant or animal breeding but do not specifically focus on the chosen selection of parents for particular traits.