Tailoring Genes For Crop Improvement

In August. 1982. a conference was held at the University of Califor nia. Davis. to discuss both molecular and traditional approaches to plant genetic analysis and plant breeding. Papers presented at the meeting were published in Genetic Engineering of Plants: An Agricultural Perspective. A second conference. entitled "Tailoring Genes for Crop Improvement." spon sored by the UC-Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the College's Biotechnology Program. was held at Davis in August. 1986. to discuss the notable advances that had been made during the intervening years in the technology for gene modification. transfer. and expression in plants. This volume contains papers that were presented at this meeting and provides readers with examples of how the new experimental strategies are being used to gain a clearer understanding of the biology of the plants we grow for food and fiber; it also discusses how molecular biology approaches are being used to introduce new genes into plants for plant breeding programs. We are grateful to the speakers for their excellent presentations for the conference and extend our sincere thanks to those who contributed manuscripts for this volume.

Assists policymakers in evaluating the appropriate scientific methods for detecting unintended changes in food and assessing the potential for adverse health effects from genetically modified products. In this book, the committee recommended that greater scrutiny should be given to foods containing new compounds or unusual amounts of naturally occurring substances, regardless of the method used to create them. The book offers a framework to guide federal agencies in selecting the route of safety assessment. It identifies and recommends several pre- and post-market approaches to guide the assessment of unintended compositional changes that could result from genetically modified foods and research avenues to fill the knowledge gaps.

Although plant genes were first isolated only some twelve years ago and transfer of foreign DNA into tobacco cells first demonstrated some eight years ago, the application and extension of biotechnology to agricultural problems has already led to the field-testing of genetically modified crop plants. The promise of tailor-made plants containing resistance to pests or diseases as well as many other desirable characteristics has led to the almost compulsory incorporation of molecular biology into the research programs of chemical and seed companies as well as Governmental agricultural agencies. With the routine transformation of rice and the early evidence of transformation of maize the possibility of the world's major cereal crops being modified for improved nutritional value or resistance characteristics is now likely in the next few years. The increasing number of cloned plant genes and the increasing sophistication of our knowledge of the major developmental and biochemi cal pathways in plants should eventually allow us to engineer crop plants with higher yields and with less detrimental impact on the environment than now occurs in our current high input agricultural systems. This book draws together many of the expanding areas of plant molecular biology and genetic engineering that will make a substantial contribution to the development of the more productive and efficient crop plants that the world's farmers will be planting in the next decade.

This book provides comprehensive information on the latest tools and techniques of molecular genetics and their applications in crop improvement. It thoroughly discusses advanced techniques used in molecular markers, QTL mapping, marker-assisted breeding, and molecular cytogenetics.

This book provides comprehensive information on the latest tools and techniques of molecular genetics and their applications in crop improvement. It thoroughly discusses advanced techniques used in molecular markers, QTL mapping, marker-assisted breeding, and molecular cytogenetics.

Plant breeders have used mutagenic agents to create variability for their use in crop improvement. However, application of mutagenic agents has its own drawbacks, such as non-specificity and random nature, simultaneous effect on large numbers of genes, and induction of chromosomal aberrations. To overcome these limitations, several genome editing systems have been developed with the aid of cutting-edge technology rooted in the expertise of several research fields. Molecular Plant Breeding and Genome Editing Tools for Crop Improvement is a pivotal reference source that provides an interdisciplinary approach to crop breeding through genetics. Featuring coverage of a broad range of topics including software, molecular markers, and plant variety identification, this book is ideally designed for agriculturalists, biologists, engineers, advocates, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.

This new volume focuses on novel breeding and biotechnological approaches for crop improvement, covering recent advances in molecular breeding and plant breeding, such as pre-breeding, reverse breeding, allele mining, next-generation sequencing, etc. The authors consider the important necessity and development of climate-resilient crops that can withstand hostility or adversities of climate without substantially compromising yield and discuss ways to mitigate plant stress. The recent developments in breeding and biotechnological approaches concerning crop improvement that are discussed in the book include molecular markers, their genesis, and their significant applications for crop improvement; QTL mapping, a modern breeding approach for mapping quantitative traits; pulse molecular breeding and genomics; and approaches for precise gene alterations in the genome of organisms by using genome editing. Other techniques include reverse breeding, a technique that allows breeders to develop parental lines directly from the heterozygous plant within a shorter time frame; pre-breeding approaches for biotic and abiotic stress management in crop plants; allele mining as a way to find existing variations in an organism’s gene pool by scanning the entire gene; marker-assisted selection, where molecular markers have played a significant role in accelerating breeding programs; and next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms in crop improvement, where the authors summarize the technical know-how of each sequencing platform and its merits and demerits. The book introduces the design and importance of Mutmap and its variant in modern breeding, a novel gene mapping approaches that allows rapid identification of causal nucleotide changes of mutants by whole-genome resequencing. Examples and case studies of the various approaches are included as well, with several examples of marker-assisted selection of rice and maize crop and other agriculturally important crops. This informative volume will enhance readers’ knowledge about the recent developments in breeding and biotechnological approaches concerning crop improvement.