Sugarcane exhibits all the major characteristics of a promising bioenergy crop including high biomass yield, C4 photosynthetic system, perennial nature, and ratooning ability. Being the largest agricultural commodity of the world with respect to total production, sugarcane biomass is abundantly available. Brazil has already become a sugarcane biofuels centered economy while Thailand, Colombia, and South Africa are also significantly exploiting this energy source. Other major cane producers include India, China, Pakistan, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and the United States. It has been projected that sugarcane biofuels will be playing extremely important role in world's energy matrix in recent future. This book analyzes the significance, applications, achievements, and future avenues of biofuels and bioenergy production from sugarcane, in top cane growing countries around the globe. Moreover, we also evaluate the barriers and areas of improvement for targeting efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective biofuels from sugarcane to meet the world's energy needs and combat the climate change.

This book presents the latest information on the genetics and genomics of the globe artichoke. It focuses on the latest findings, tools and strategies employed in genome sequencing, physical map development and QTL analyses, as well as genomic resources. The re-sequencing of four globe artichoke genotypes, representative of the core varietal types in cultivation, as well as the genotype of cultivated cardoon, has recently been completed. Here, the five genomes are reconstructed at the chromosome scale and annotated. Moreover, functional SNP analyses highlight numerous genetic variants, which represent key tools for dissecting the path from sequence variation to phenotype, as well as for designing effective diagnostic markers. The wealth of information provided here offers a valuable asset for scientists, plant breeders and students alike.

Dothistroma pini changed New Zealand commercial forestry dramatically. Tree breeding became concentrated on a very few species and development of selection methods and breeding strategies changed in response to the new challenges. Tree-Breeding and Genetics in New Zealand provides a critical historical account of the work on provenance research and tree breeding, often with the wisdom of hindsight, and it tracks the development of breeding strategy, especially for P. radiata, Douglas-fir and the most important eucalypt species, E. regnans, E. fastigata and E. nitens. The book is a compendium of abstracts and summaries of all publications and reports on tree improvement in New Zealand since the early 1950s, with added critical comment by the author on much of the work. It is intended for other tree breeders internationally, for interested NZ foresters and for graduate students studying genetics and tree breeding.

The grasses and legumes grown in pastures and rangelands form the basis of the worldwide animal production industry. Some species also have a significant role in the sport and leisure industry, for playing surfaces such as golf courses and football fields. It is therefore vitally important to ensure that seed supplies of appropriate species are available for use on a commercial scale. This book is published in association with the International Herbage Seed Production Research Group. It brings together leading researchers and along with its companion volume Forage Seed Production Volume 2: Tropical and Subtropical Species (to be published in late 1998), provides the definitive resource for all those concerned with breeding and profitable seed production for grasses and legumes used within grazing systems or recreation and amenity provision. The book is in two parts. Part 1 covers all aspects relevant to seed production, including improving seed yield and quality, crop management, harvesting, processing and the international seed trade. Part 2 consists of eleven case studies from eight countries covering three continents. This book and its companion should be read by all seed scientists involved in the breeding and commercial production of grass and legume seed. They also represent a valuable asset for all commercial seed suppliers. Additionally, the information presented within the book is important for all students and lecturers within departments of agriculture and plant breeding.

The third edition of "Seeds: The Ecology of Regeneration in Plant Communities" highlights the many advances in the field of seed ecology and its relationship to plant community dynamics that have taken place in recent years. The new edition also features chapters on seed development and morphology, seed chemical ecology, implications of climate change on regeneration by seed, and the functional role of seed banks in agricultural and natural ecosystems. The book is aimed at advanced level students and researchers in the fields of seed science, seed ecology and plant ecology.

Reproduction is a fundamental feature of life, it is the way life persists across the ages. This book offers new, wider vistas on this fundamental biological phenomenon, exploring how it works through the whole tree of life. It explores facets such as asexual reproduction, parthenogenesis, sex determination and reproductive investment, with a taxonomic coverage extended over all the main groups - animals, plants including 'algae', fungi, protists and bacteria. It collates into one volume perspectives from varied disciplines - including zoology, botany, microbiology, genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, animal and plant physiology, and ethology - integrating information into a common language. Crucially, the book aims to identify the commonalties among reproductive phenomena, while demonstrating the diversity even amongst closely related taxa. Its integrated approach makes this a valuable reference book for students and researchers, as well as an effective entry point for deeper study on specific topics.

Plant Adaptation and Crop Improvement focuses on the opportunities for increasing the efficiency of crop improvement by understanding the basis of variation for plant adaptation in agricultural production systems. Crop improvement strategies based on combinations of the statistical modelling methodologies used by plant breeders and the crop modelling methodologies used by crop physiologists/agronomists are developed and discussed. The book captures much of the experience of scientists from around the world who have worked on the challenging problem of achieving crop improvement in variable crop production systems. It represents a major synthesis for workers in plant breeding, crop physiology and agronomy.

Soil salinity is a key abiotic-stress and poses serious threats to crop yields and quality of produce. Owing to the underlying complexity, conventional breeding programs have met with limited success. Even genetic engineering approaches, via transferring/overexpressing a single 'direct action gene' per event did not yield optimal results. Nevertheless, the biotechnological advents in last decade coupled with the availability of genomic sequences of major crops and model plants have opened new vistas for understanding salinity-responses and improving salinity tolerance in important glycophytic crops. Our goal is to summarize these findings for those who wish to understand and target the molecular mechanisms for producing salt-tolerant and high-yielding crops. Through this 2-volume book series, we critically assess the potential venues for imparting salt stress tolerance to major crops in the post-genomic era. Accordingly, perspectives on improving crop salinity tolerance by targeting the sensory, ion-transport and signaling mechanisms were presented in Volume 1. Volume 2 now focuses on the potency of post-genomic era tools that include RNAi, genomic intervention, genome editing and systems biology approaches for producing salt tolerant crops.

This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. In horticulture, agriculture, and food science, plants' reproductive physiology is an important topic relating to fruits and vegetables, the main consumable parts of plants. All aspects of plant physiology, including plants' reproductive systems, are important to the production of food, fibers, medicine, cosmetics, and even fuels. This volume presents many new studies on plants' reproductive systems, including new research on sperm cells in plant reproduction; the effect of herbivory on plant reproduction; disturbances to functional diversity; plant genes, hormones, DNA; and much more.

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is a crop of small land holding farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. It has a number of usages starting from protein rich food to vegetarian families; fuel wood; nitrogen supplier to soil; recycling minerals in soil to animal feed etc. Pigeonpea has been considered to be originated and domesticated in central India from where it travelled to different parts of the world such as Africa and Latin America. In ongoing scenario of climate change, biotic and especially abiotic stresses will make the conditions more challenging for entire agriculture. This volume focusing on the pigeonpea genome will collate the information on the genome sequencing and its utilization in genomics activities, with a focus on the current findings, advanced tools and strategies deployed in pigeonpea genome sequencing and analysis, and how this information is leading to direct outcomes for plant breeders and subsequently to farmers.

This book presents the current state of the art in peanut genomics, focusing particularly on the latest genomic findings, tools and strategies employed in genome sequencing, transcriptomes and analysis, availability of public and private genomic resources, and ways to maximize the use of this information in peanut breeding programs. Further, it demonstrates how advances in plant genomics can be used to improve crop breeding. The peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L. Millsp) is a globally important grain legume and oilseed crop, cultivated in over 100 countries and consumed in the form of roasted seeds, oil and confectionary in nearly every country on Earth. The peanut contributes towards achieving food and nutritional security, in addition to financial security through income generation; as such, it is also vital to the livelihood of the poor in the developing world. There have been significant advances in peanut research, especially in the last five years, including sequencing the genome of both diploid progenitors, and the availability of tremendous transcriptome resources, large-scale genomic variations that can be used as genetic markers, genetic populations (bi- and multiparent populations and germplasm sets), marker-trait associations and molecular breeding products. The immediate availability of the genome sequence for tetraploid cultivated peanuts is the most essential genomic resource for achieving a deeper understanding of peanut traits and their use in breeding programs.

In nature, radiata pine is very localised and an obscure tree species despite the romantic character of much of its natural habitat. That obscure status and the lack of any reputation as a virgin timber slowed its due recognition as a commercial crop. Nevertheless, it has become a major plantation forest crop internationally. It has become the pre-eminent commercial forest species in New Zealand, Chile and Australia, with important plantings in some other countries. It consequently features prominently in the international trade in forest products, in addition to its importance in domestic markets of grower countries. Very fast growth, considerable site tolerances, ease of raising in nurseries and transplanting, and ease of processing and using its wood for a range of products and purposes, have made it the utility softwood of choice almost everywhere it can be grown satisfactorily. Abundant genetic variation and its amenability to other management inputs created special opportunities for its domestication. The story of its domestication forms a classic case history in the development of modern commercial forestry, with trailblazing in both genetic improvement and plantation management; this inevitably meant a learning process that provided instructive lessons, especially for tree breeders dealing with some other species. Paradoxically, the plantation monocultures have played and can continue to play an important role in protecting natural forests and other forms of biodiversity. Given the attractions of growing radiata pine, there were inevitably cases of overreach in planting it, with lessons to be learnt. Economic globalisation has meant globalisation of pests and disease organisms, and the scale on which radiata pine is grown has meant is has been the focus of various biotic alarms, none of which have proved catastrophic. Temptations, remain, however, to pay less than due attention to some aspects of risk management. The chapter structure of the book is based on historical periods, beginning long before any important human influences, and ending with a look into what the future might hold for the species and its role in human and ecological sustainability. Almost throughout, there has been complex interplay between the technical aspects, local social and economic factors, various types of institution, the enthusiasm and drive of some very influential individuals, and tides of economic ideology, threads that needed to be woven together to do the story justice.

Bioremediation is the use of microorganisms' metabolism to degrade waste contaminants (sewage, domestic, and industrial effluents) into non-toxic or less toxic materials by natural biological processes. Remediation through fungi-or mycoremediation-has multifarious possibilities in applied remediation engineering and the future of environmental sustainability. Fungi have the biochemical and ecological capability to degrade environmental organic chemicals and to decrease the risk associated with metals, semi-metals, noble metals, and radionuclides, either by chemical modification or by manipulating chemical bioavailability. Additionally, the capability of these fungi to form extended mycelia networks, the low specificity of their catabolic enzymes, and their using pollutants as a growth substrate make these fungi well suited for bioremediation processes. Their mycelia exhibit the robustness of adapting to highly limiting environmental conditions often experienced in the presence of persistent pollutants, which makes them more useful compared to other microbes. However, despite dominating the living biomass in soil and being abundant in aquatic ecosystems, fungi have not been exploited for the bioremediation of such environments. This book covers the various types of fungi and associated fungal processes used to clean up waste and wastewaters in contaminated environments and discusses future potential applications.

This book provides insights into the genetics and the latest advances in genomics research on the common bean, offering a timely overview of topics that are pertinent for future developments in legume genomics. The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is the most important grain legume crop for food consumption worldwide, as well as a model for legume research, and the availability of the genome sequence has completely changed the paradigm of the ongoing research on the species. Key topics covered include the numerous genetic and genomic resources, available tools, the identified genes and quantitative trait locus (QTL) identified, and there is a particular emphasis on domestication. It is a valuable resource for students and researchers interested in the genetics and genomics of the common bean and legumes in general.

This book sheds new light on the chickpea genome sequencing and resequencing of chickpea germplasm lines and provides insights into classical genetics, cytogenetics, and trait mapping. It also offers an overview of the latest advances in genome sequencing and analysis. The growing human population, rapid climate changes and limited amounts of arable land are creating substantial challenges in connection with the availability and affordability of nutritious food for smallholder farmers in developing countries. In this context, climate smart crops are essential to alleviating the hunger of the millions of poor and undernourished people living in developing countries. In addition to cereals, grain legumes are an integral part of the human diet and provide sustainable income for smallholder farmers in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Among grain legumes, the chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is the second most important in terms of production and productivity. Besides being a rich source of proteins, it can fix atmospheric nitrogen through symbiosis with rhizobia and increase the input of combined nitrogen. Several abiotic stresses like drought, heat, salinity, together with biotic stresses like Fusarium wilt, Ascochyta blight, and Botrytis grey mould have led to production losses, as the chickpeas is typically grown in the harsh climates of our planet's semi-arid regions.

This book places grapes in the context of their family, the Vitaceae. It begins by focusing on the relationship of the family to other angiosperms and the interrelationships and characteristics of its genera. Two chapters emphasize the structure and development of its major vegetative and reproductive characteristics. Keys and illustrated descriptions for 19 North American species including 10 Vitis are provided. The three chapters on Vitis begin with a brief history of grape growing, with emphasis on North America. There is an illustrated life history of grape, following the two-year cycle from bud initiation to fruit maturity. The final chapter discusses the history of grapevine identification in North America, concluding with descriptions and illustrations of 30 important North American cold climate cultivars. The book is a general resource for understanding the growth, development, life history, and identification of grapes and the Vitaceae.

Meeting the world's food security challenge will require a multi-national, collaborative effort to integrate the best research from science, engineering and socioeconomics so that technological advances can bring benefits where they are most needed. The present book covers the effect of major environmental problems on crop production and how to cope with these issues for sustainable agriculture and improvements of crops. The world's population is predicted to hit 9.6 Billion by 2050, up from today's total of nearly 7.3 Billion, and with it food demand is predicted to increase substantially. The post-war 'second agricultural revolution' in developed countries, and the 'green revolution' in developing nations in the mid- 1960s converted agricultural practices and elevated crop yields spectacularly, but the outcome is levelling off and will not meet projected demand. Simultaneously, crop production is affected by many other factors, including industrial pollution, overuse of fertilizers and insecticides, heavy metal and radiation stresses etc. It has been noted that many pests are becoming resistant to insecticides. Estimates vary, but around 25% of crops can be lost to pests and diseases. Climate change associated with agriculture is also a global issue. Agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases and is estimated to account for 10-12% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many of the issues highlighted are global problems and are addressed thoroug hly in this work.

This book presents an overview of the state-of-the-art in barley genome analysis, covering all aspects of sequencing the genome and translating this important information into new knowledge in basic and applied crop plant biology and new tools for research and crop improvement. Unlimited access to a high-quality reference sequence is removing one of the major constraints in basic and applied research. This book summarizes the advanced knowledge of the composition of the barley genome, its genes and the much larger non-coding part of the genome, and how this information facilitates studying the specific characteristics of barley. One of the oldest domesticated crops, barley is the small grain cereal species that is best adapted to the highest altitudes and latitudes, and it exhibits the greatest tolerance to most abiotic stresses. With comprehensive access to the genome sequence, barley's importance as a genetic model in comparative studies on crop species like wheat, rye, oats and even rice is likely to increase.

This book collates the most up to date information on Fragaria, and Rubus genomes. It focuses on the latest advances in the model system Fragaria vesca, along with the allied advances in economically important crops. Covering both basic and applied aspects of crop genomics, it illustrates strategies and resources for the study and utilization of genome sequences and aligned functional genomics resources. Rosaceous berries are collectively an increasingly important set of high-value global crops, with a trade value of over GBP2 billion dollars per annum. The rosaceous berries strawberry, raspberry and blackberry share some common features at the genome scale, namely a range of ploidy levels in each genus and high levels of heterozygosity (and associated inbreeding depression) due to self-incompatibility systems, dioecy, or multispecies hybridization events. Taken together, although the genomes are relatively compact, these biological features lead to significant challenges in the assembly and analysis of berry genomes, which until very recently have hampered the progress of genome-level studies. The genome of the woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, a self-compatible species with a homozygous genome was first sequenced in 2011 and has served as a foundation for most genomics work in Fragaria and to some extent Rubus. Since that time, building upon this resource, there have been significant advances in the development of genome sequences for related crop species. This, coupled with the revolution in affordable sequencing technology, has led to a suite of genomics studies on Fragaria and more recently Rubus, which undoubtedly aid crop breeding and production in future years.

This work synthesizes research and practical work, including various techniques and applications of botany and nanoparticles, including enzymology, pharmaceuticals, phenolics, antioxidants, metal particles, synthesis of nanoparticles by plants and microbes, and more. The text discusses the latest research as well as key sources of information condensed from other scholars across the globe, providing a comprehensive resource for scholars working in nanobotany, as well as chemists and researchers in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ferns, collectively, represent an ancient species of vascular plant which has a direct connection to the beginning of life on Earth. Today they are valued for their ornamental appeal, environmental benefit or as sources of health benefiting metabolites. Current pteridology, the study of fern, encompasses a wide range of research activities including, but not limited to, plant physiology, stress tolerance, genetics and genomics. The goal of this book is to compile the most relevant research done with ferns during the last decade. It is organized into four parts: I, Biology and Biotechnology; II, Evolution and Conservation; III, Metabolism and Genetic Resources, and IV, Environment. Each section reveals the utilization of ferns as a tool to explore challenges unique to plant development and adaptation. This project represents our collective effort to raise the awareness of ferns as a model system to study higher plant functions. Among the distinctive features of our proposed book are: (i) a wide range of topics with contributing researchers from all around the world, and (ii) recent advances of theoretic and applied knowledge with implications to crop species of economic value.

This book includes papers presented at the 2017 Joint meeting of Fodder Crops and Amenity Grasses Section and Protein Crops Working Group of EUCARPIA-Oil and Protein Crops Section. The theme of the meeting "Breeding Grasses and Protein Crops in the Era of Genomics" has been divided into six parts: (1) Utilisation of genetic resources and pre-breeding, (2) Genetic improvement of quality and agronomic traits, (3) Breeding for enhanced stress tolerance (4) Implementation of phenomics and biometrics, (5) Development of genomic tools and bioinformatics and (6) Reports of Parallel Sessions.

Ornamental plants are economically important worldwide. Both growers and consumers ask continuously for new, improved varieties. Although there are numerous ornamental species, ornamental plant breeding and plant breeding research is mainly limited to some major species. This book focuses on the recent advances and achievements in ornamental plant breeding. The first part of the book focuses on plant traits and breeding techniques that are typical for ornamental plants. Eminent research groups write these general chapters. For plant traits like flower colour or shape, breeding for disease resistance and vase or shelf life are reviewed. General technical plant breeding chapters deal with mutation breeding, polyploidisation, in vitro breeding techniques and new developments in molecular techniques. The second part of the book consists of crop-specific chapters. Here all economically major ornamental species are handled together with selected representative species from different plant groups (cut flowers, pot plants, woody ornamental plants). In these crop-specific chapters, the main focus is on recent scientific achievements over the last decade.

Soil salinity is a key abiotic-stress and poses serious threats to crop yields and quality of produce. Owing to the underlying complexity, conventional breeding programs have met with limited success. Even genetic engineering approaches, via transferring/overexpressing a single 'direct action gene' per event did not yield optimal results. Nevertheless, the biotechnological advents in last decade coupled with the availability of genomic sequences of major crops and model plants have opened new vistas for understanding salinity-responses and improving salinity tolerance in important glycophytic crops. Our goal is to summarize these findings for those who wish to understand and target the molecular mechanisms for producing salt-tolerant and high-yielding crops. Through this 2-volume book series, we critically assess the potential venues for imparting salt stress tolerance to major crops in the post-genomic era. Accordingly, perspectives on improving crop salinity tolerance by targeting the sensory, ion-transport and signaling mechanisms are presented here in volume 1. Volume 2 will focus on the potency of post-genomic era tools that include RNAi, genomic intervention, genome editing and systems biology approaches for producing salt tolerant crops.

For the majority of the world's population, medicinal and aromatic plants are the most important source of life-saving drugs. Biotechnological tools represent important resources for selecting, multiplying and conserving the critical genotypes of medicinal plants. In this regard, in-vitro regeneration holds tremendous potential for the production of high-quality plant-based medicines, while cryopreservation - a long-term conservation method using liquid nitrogen - provides an opportunity to conserve endangered medicinal and aromatic plants. In-vitro production of secondary metabolites in plant cell suspension cultures has been reported for various medicinal plants, and bioreactors represent a key step toward the commercial production of secondary metabolites by means of plant biotechnology. Addressing these key aspects, the book contains 29 chapters, divided into three sections. Section 1: In-vitro production of secondary metabolites Section 2: In-vitro propagation, genetic transformation and germplasm conservation Section 3: Conventional and molecular approaches