Flora of North America Volume 7 is the seventh volume of nineteen on dicotyledons to be published in the Flora of North America series. It treats more than 910 species classified among 114 genera in five families in the following two orders of the subclass Dilleniidae: Salicales (Willow order) and Capparales (Caper order). The families covered in Volume 7 include Salicaceae, Capparaceae, Brassicaceae, Moringaceae, and Resedaceae. Each genus has representative species illustrated with a line drawing that, in combination with keys and descriptions, will facilitate identifications of these groups of plants. Even though many genera of mustards (Brassicaceae-nearly 100 genera with c. 750 species) are known in the flora area due to introduced species, many quite species-rich genera-Draba (140 species), Boechera (109 spp.), Physaria (90 spp.), Lepidium (40 spp.), Streptanthus (33 spp.), and Rorippa (23 spp.)-have many endemic species that are known from quite restricted areas within North America.
The volume includes identification keys, descriptions, line drawings, and ecological characteristics for each of the species; distribution maps for the native and established species; and a list of the synonyms currently in use for the accepted names. The treatments, each of which has been extensively reviewed, are based on a combination of original observations and critical review of the literature.

This book is designed to popularize Quinoa cereal among both scientific and food industry. Quinoa is an attractive candidate for protein replacement, has potential for futuristic biotechnological modifications, and is able to grow under many different abiotic stresses. To save the world from animal cruelty, quinoa emerges as a hero for vegans and vegetarians. This book deals with morphological features, life cycle, nutritional qualities, genetics, agronomic manipulations, ecological communications, stress tolerance mechanisms, and food applications of Chenopodium quinoa. Quinoa is a pseudo-cereal native to Andes Region in South America. Over time, it spread to many different regions worldwide and is emerging as protein-rich vegetarian food source. In order to cure malnutrition globally, it is important to channel this lesser-known grain to local cultivators. This can only be done through well-proven scientific data that supports its qualities. This book aims to do the same, while also giving an insight into the vast scope quinoa posses as an experimental crop. Its stress-tolerant abilities can inspire scientists to understand those mechanisms, further exploit them, and even introduce them into other stress-sensitive crops. In future, quinoa can be among the top sources that offer food security. Due to its adaptability, ease of cultivation, and rich output, sustainability can be achieved by regulating its breeding and growth. This book is of interest to researchers, teachers, agronomic cultivators, environmentalists, botanists, microbiologists, geneticists and food technologists. This book covers recent advances, challenges in cultivation, biology, nutrition, and agricultural science topics, suitable for both young learners and advanced scientists. Cultivators who want to know more about quinoa and introduce it into their agronomic applications will find helpful information from the text.

This book discusses CRISPR/Cas- one of the most powerful tools available to scientists for genome editing. CRISPR/Cas is not only a genome editing tool, but researchers have also engineered it for gene regulation, genome imaging, base editing and epigenome regulations. This book describes the entire toolkit for CRISPR/Cas. The opening section gives an introduction to the technique and compares it with other genome editing tools. Further section gives a historical perspective of the tool, along with its detailed classification. The next chapters describe bioinformatic tools in CRISPR/Cas, and delivery methods for CRISPR/Cas. The book also discusses about the applications of CRISPR/Cas beyond genome editing and use of CRISPR for rewriting genetic codes. The book dedicates a section to the use of CRISPR in plants. The book culminates with a chapter on the current status, challenges and shortcomings of the CRISPR/Cas genome editing tool. The book would be highly interesting to students and researchers in molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, food science, agriculture and plant sciences.

Fungi are an essential, fascinating and biotechnologically useful group of organisms with an incredible biotechnological potential for industrial exploitation. Knowledge of the world's fungal diversity and its use is still incomplete and fragmented. There are many opportunities to accelerate the process of filling knowledge gaps in these areas. The worldwide interest of the current era is to increase the tendency to use natural substances instead of synthetic ones. The increasing urge in society for natural ingredients has compelled biotechnologists to explore novel bioresources which can be exploited in industrial sector. Fungi, due to their unique attributes and broad range of their biological activities hold great promises for their application in biotechnology and industry. Fungi are an efficient source of antioxidants, enzymes, pigments, and many other secondary metabolites. The large scale production of fungal pigments and their utility provides natural coloration without creating harmful effects on entering the environment, a safer alternative use to synthetic colorants. The fungal enzymes can be exploited in wide range of industries such as food, detergent, paper, and also for removal toxic waste. This book will serve as valuable source of information as well as will provide new directions to researchers to conduct novel research in field of mycology. Volume 2 of "Industrially Important Fungi for Sustainable Development" provides an overview to understanding bioprospecting of fungal biomolecules and their industrial application for future sustainability. It encompasses current advanced knowledge of fungal communities and their potential biotechnological applications in industry and allied sectors. The book will be useful to scientists, researchers, and students of microbiology, biotechnology, agriculture, molecular biology, and environmental biology.

From the cells of aquatic algae to the majestic redwoods towering 100 metres above the California coast, the history of plant evolution has been one of increasing complexity. The underlying rationale for this book is to answer the question: How, when land plant embryos at a few-celled stage are essentially comparable, do plants achieve such radically different adult phenotypes, from mosses to tree-ferns, and grasses to oak trees?
The Molecular Organography of Plants chronicles the origin, and importance, of the complex plant organs that have allowed plants to shape the earth's biosphere, and seeks to explain why and how the genetic mechanisms governing these developmental trajectories have diverged so much. It provides a detailed account of the organs produced by land plants (stems, roots, leaves, seeds, flowers) into which is incorporated what is rapidly becoming known of the molecular mechanisms responsible. Plant organs are therefore discussed in the context of the evolution of development ("evo-devo"), and their basis in molecular developmental genetics is described. The result is a novel synthesis of classical morphology and molecular developmental biology that takes a broad look at the evolution of plant form.

Plants, being sessile and autotrophic in nature, must cope with challenging environmental aberrations and therefore have evolved various responsive or defensive mechanisms including stress sensing mechanisms, antioxidant system, signaling pathways, secondary metabolites biosynthesis, and other defensive pathways among which accumulation of osmolytes or osmo-protectants is an important phenomenon. Osmolytes with organic chemical nature termed as compatible solutes are highly soluble compounds with no net charge at physiological pH and nontoxic at higher concentrations to plant cells. Compatible solutes in plants involve compounds like proline, glycine betaine, polyamines, trehalose, raffinose family oligosaccharides, fructans, gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), and sugar alcohols playing structural, physiological, biochemical, and signaling roles during normal plant growth and development. The current and sustaining problems of climate change and increasing world population has challenged global food security. To feed more than 9 billion, the estimated population by 2050, the yield of major crops needs to be increased 1.1-1.3% per year, which is mainly restricted by the yield ceiling. A major factor limiting the crop yield is the changing global environmental conditions which includes drought, salinity and extreme temperatures and are responsible for a reduction of crop yield in almost all the crop plants. This condition may worsen with a decrease in agricultural land or the loss of potential crop yields by 70%. Therefore, it is a challenging task for agricultural scientists to develop tolerant/resistant varieties against abiotic stresses. The development of stress tolerant plant varieties through conventional breeding is very slow due to complex multigene traits. Engineering compatible solutes biosynthesis by deciphering the mechanism behind the abiotic tolerance or accumulation in plants cell is a potential emerging strategy to mitigate adverse effects of abiotic stresses and increase global crop production. However, detailed information on compatible solutes, including their sensing/signaling, biosynthesis, regulatory components, underlying biochemical mechanisms, crosstalk with other signaling pathways, and transgenic development have not been compiled into a single resource. Our book intends to fill this unmet need, with insight from recent advances in compatible solutes research on agriculturally important crop plants.

This book adopts an experimental approach to understanding the mechanisms of evolution and the nature of evolutionary processes, with examples drawn from microbial, plant and animal systems. It incorporates insights from remarkable recent advances in theoretical modeling, and the fields of molecular genetics and environmental genomics.
Adaptation is caused by selection continually winnowing the genetic variation created by mutation. In the last decade, our knowledge of how selection operates on populations in the field and in the laboratory has increased enormously, and the principal aim of this book is to provide an up-to-date account of selection as the principal agent of evolution. In the classical Fisherian model, weak selection acting on many genes of small effect over long periods of time is responsible for driving slow and gradual change. However, it is now clear that adaptation in laboratory populations often involves strong selection acting on a few genes of large effect, while in the wild selection is often strong and highly variable in space and time. Indeed these results are changing our perception of how evolutionary change takes place. This book summarizes our current understanding of the causes and consequences of selection, with an emphasis on quantitative and experimental studies. It includes the latest research into experimental evolution, natural selection in the wild, artificial selection, selfish genetic elements, selection in social contexts, sexual selection, and speciation.
Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution is an advanced textbook suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in evolutionary biology, ecology, populationgenetics, and experimental evolution. It will also be a valuable reference tool for those professional researchers in these fields requiring an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the topic, as well as providing an accessible treatment of evolutionary mechanisms for molecular and cellular biologists.

This book is the first volume of a comprehensive assemblage of contemporary knowledge relevant to genomics and other omics in date palm. Volume 1 consists of 11 chapters arranged in 3 parts grouped according to subject. Part I, Biology and Phylogeny, focuses on date palm biology, evolution and origin. Part II, Biodiversity and Molecular Identification, covers conformity of in vitro derived plants, molecular markers, barcoding, pollinizer genetics and gender determination. Part III, Genome Mapping and Bioinformatics, addresses genome mapping of nuclear, chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA, in addition to a chapter on progress made in date palm bioinformatics. This volume represents the efforts of 30 international scientists from 10 countries and contains 78 figures and 30 tables to illustrate presented concepts. Volume 2 is published under the title: Omics and Molecular Breeding.

Flora of North America Volume 27 is the first volume of three on the bryophytes (mosses, hornworts, and liverworts). Thirty-five authors treat the first half of the mosses, including 32 of the acrocarpous families, with introductory chapters on bryophyte morphology, the history of North America floristic bryology, and economic uses. The 84 species of sphagnum, of considerable economic importance, are fully treated. The number of taxa total 37 genera and 621 species. The taxa are fully described and keyed, illustrated with an estimated 136 panels of detailed line drawings of two or more species each, and geographic distributions are provided at the province and state level. This is the first installment of a full compilation of the mosses for North America since A. J. Grout's Moss Flora of North America of 60 years ago, and is sure to be an invaluable reference.
The volume includes identification keys, descriptions, line drawings, and ecological characteristics for each of the species; distribution maps for the native and established species; and a list of the synonyms currently in use for the accepted names.

Plants are an important source of fats and oils, which are essential for the human diet. In recent years, genomics of oil biosynthesis in plants have attracted great interest, especially in high oil-bearing plants, such as sesame, olive, sunflower, and palm. Considering that, genome sequencing projects of these plants have been undertaken with the help of advanced genomics tools such as next generation sequencing. Several genome sequencing projects of oil crops are in progress and many others are en route. In addition to genome information, advanced genomics approaches are discussed such as transcriptomics, genomics-assisted breeding, genome-wide association study (GWAS), genotyping by sequencing (GBS), and CRISPR. These have all improved our understanding of the oil biosynthesis mechanism and breeding strategies for oil production. There is, however, no book that covers the genomes and genomics of oil crops. For this reason, in this volume we collected the most recent knowledge of oil crop genomics for researchers who study oil crop genomes, genomics, biotechnology, pharmacology, and medicine. This book covers all genome-sequenced oil crops as well as the plants producing important oil metabolites. Throughout this book, the latest genomics developments and discoveries are highlighted as well as open problems and future challenges in oil crop genomics. In doing so, we have covered the state-of-the-art of developments and trends of oil crop genomics.

This book is the first comprehensive assemblage of contemporary knowledge relevant to genomics and other omics in date palm. Volume 2 consists of 11 chapters. Part I, Nutritional and Pharmaceuticals Properties, covers the utilization of date palm as an ingredient of various food products, a source of bioactive compounds and the production of nanomaterials. Part II, Omics Technologies, addresses omics resources, proteomics and metabolomics. Part III, Molecular Breeding and Genome Modification, focuses on genetic improvement technologies based on mutagenesis, quantitative traits loci and genome editing. Part IV, Genomics of Abiotic and Biotic Stress, covers metagenomics of beneficial microbes to enhance tolerance to abiotic stress and the various genomics advances as they apply to insect control. This volume represents the efforts of 34 international scientists from 12 countries and contains 65 figures and 19 tables to illustrate presented concepts. Volume 1 is published under the title: Phylogeny, Biodiversity and Mapping.

Written in easy to follow language, the book presents cutting-edge agriculturally relevant plant biotechnologies and applications in a manner that is accessible to all. This book updates and introduces the scope and method of plant biotechnologies and molecular breeding within the context of environmental analysis and assessment, a diminishing supply of productive arable land, scarce water resources and climate change. New plant breeding techniques including CRISPR-cas system are now tools to meet these challenges both in developed countries and in developing countries. Ethical issues, intellectual property rights, regulation policies in various countries related to agricultural biotechnology are examined. The rapid developments in plant biotechnology are explained to a large audience with relevant examples. New varieties of crops can be adapted to new climatic conditions in order to reduce pest-associated losses and the adverse abiotic effects

The male thynnine wasp's extreme sexual enthusiasm is crucial to reproduction of hammer orchids in the wild. Hammer orchids have co-evolved to produce odors identical to those manufactured by female thynnine wasps. The male wasp's superb sensitivity to the scent of his female mate is the basis for the hammer orchid's deceit--in effect, orchids exploit the male insect's highly adaptive sense of smell for their own propagation. While pollinating orchids is a waste of time, and thus a maladaptive activity for a wasp, his mistake comes about because he must react quickly whenever he senses a possible mate nearby. Alcock suggests that, "for insects, he who hesitates is lost, although perhaps it would be better to say that he who hesitates often loses a chance to pass on his genes."
This book abounds with clever explanations for how these exceptionally complex flowers came to be shaped as they are. The reader can explore many aspects of orchid biology and history ranging from how some species avoid inbreeding, to the origins of orchids from an ancestor that belonged to the asparagus family. Examining each component of an orchid's flower, Alcock explains how the various parts work together to produce the plant's minute offspring. Each element of an orchid, as quirky as it may seem, is biologically significant, bearing the imprint of natural selection. Readers can share in the delight that Darwin and all other orchid enthusiasts have felt in making sense of even the smallest of details of these most wonderful plants.

This book gathers the latest information on the organization of genomes in wild Solanum species and emphasizes how this information is yielding direct outcomes in the fields of molecular breeding, as well as a better understanding of both the patterns and processes of evolution. Cultivated Solanums, such as potato, tomato, and pepper, possess a high number of wild relatives that are of great importance for practical breeding and evolutionary studies. Their germplasm is often characterized by allelic diversity, as well as genes that are lacking in the cultivated species. Wild Solanums have not been fully exploited by breeders. This is mainly due to the lack of information regarding their genetics and genomics. However, the genome of important cultivated Solanaceae such as potato, tomato, eggplant, and pepper has already been sequenced. On the heels of these recent developments, wild Solanum genomes are now becoming available, opening an exciting new era for both basic research and varietal development in the Solanaceae.

This edited book presents the latest research on cucumber, its genetic resources and diversity, tissue culture and genetic transformation, mapping of economic genes and QTLs, whole genome sequencing, comparative genomics, and breeding strategies. The mechanism of sex expression, interspecific hybridization, and cell biology are also described. The book discusses the genome draft of cucumber and the application of genome editing. This book is useful to the students, teachers and scientists in academia and relevant private companies interested in horticulture, genetics, breeding, and related areas.

Fungi range from being microscopic, single-celled yeasts to multicellular and heterotrophic in nature. Fungal communities have been found in vast ranges of environmental conditions. They can be associated with plants epiphytically, endophytically, or rhizospherically. Extreme environments represent unique ecosystems that harbor novel biodiversity of fungal communities. Interest in the exploration of fungal diversity has been spurred by the fact that fungi perform numerous functions integral in sustaining the biosphere, ranging from nutrient cycling to environmental detoxification, which involves processes like augmentation, supplementation, and recycling of plant nutrients - a particularly important process in sustainable agriculture. Fungal communities from natural and extreme habitats help promote plant growth, enhance crop yield, and enhance soil fertility via direct or indirect plant growth promoting (PGP) mechanisms of solubilization of phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, production of ammonia, hydrogen cyanides, phytohormones, Fe-chelating compounds, extracellular hydrolytic enzymes, and bioactive secondary metabolites. These PGP fungi could be used as biofertilizers, bioinoculants, and biocontrol agents in place of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in eco-friendly manners for sustainable agriculture and environments. Along with agricultural applications, medically important fungi play a significant role for human health. Fungal communities are useful for sustainable environments as they are used for bioremediation which 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. Fungi could be used as mycoremediation for the future of environmental sustainability. Fungi and fungal products have the biochemical and ecological capability to degrade environmental organic chemicals and to decrease the risk associated with metals, semi-metals, and noble metals either by chemical modification or by manipulating chemical bioavailability. The two volumes of Recent Trends in Mycological Research aim to provide an understanding of fungal communities from diverse environmental habitats and their potential applications in agriculture, medical, environments and industry. The books are useful to scientists, researchers, and students involved in microbiology, biotechnology, agriculture, molecular biology, environmental biology and related subjects.

This book celebrates the dawn of the rye genomics era with concise, comprehensive, and accessible reviews on the current state of rye genomic research, written by experts in the field for students, researchers and growers. To most, rye is the key ingredient in a flavoursome bread or their favourite American whisky. To a farmer, rye is the remarkable grain that tolerates the harshest winters and the most unforgiving soils, befitting its legacy as the life-giving seed that fed the ancient civilisations of northern Eurasia. Since the mid-1900s, scientists have employed genetic approaches to better understand and utilize rye, but only since the technological advances of the mid-2010s has the possibility of addressing questions using rye genome assemblies become a reality. Alongside the secret of its unique survival abilities, rye genomics has accelerated research on a host of intriguing topics such as the complex history of rye's domestication by humans, the nature of genes that switch fertility on and off, the function and origin of accessory chromosomes, and the evolution of selfish DNA.

Cash crops are grown and sold for monetary gain and not necessarily for sustenance. They include coffee, tea, coconut, cotton, jute, groundnut, castor, linseed, cocoa, rubber, cassava, soybean, sweet potato, potato, wheat, corn and teff. While some of these crops have been improved for realizing yield potential, breeding of many of them is still in infancy. Crops that underwent rigorous breeding have eventually lost much of the diversity due to extensive cultivation with a few improved varieties and the diversity in less bred species is to be conserved. Over the past years, scholars and policy makers have become increasingly aware of the short and long-run impact of climatic factors on economic, food security, social and political outcomes . Genetic diversity, natural and induced, is much needed for the future generations to sustain food production with more climate resilient crops. In contrast, crop uniformity produced across the farm fields in the form of improved varieties is genetically vulnerable to biotic and abiotic stresses. Thus, it is essential and challenging to address the issue of compromising between maximizing crop yield under a given set of conditions and minimizing the risk of crop failure when conditions change. Cash crops are grown in an array of climatic conditions. Many of the world's poor still live in rural areas. Many are subsistence farmers, operating very small farms using very little agricultural inputs for achieving marketable outputs. Conserving the diversity of these crops and addressing all issues of crop culture through modern tools of biotechnology and genomics is a real challenge. We believe the focus of this book is to fill an unmet need of this and other grower communities by providing the necessary knowledge, albeit indirectly via the academics, to manage the risks of cash crops breeding through managing genetic diversity.

The protein molecule is the basic building block of every living entity. Its deficiency leads to restricted growth and development of individuals. Globally, such malnutrition is on the rise due to various reasons such as rapid population growth, stagnation of productivity, and ever-rising costs. Millions of people, especially in developing and under-developed countries, suffer from protein malnutrition and the only possible solution is to encourage farmers to grow high-protein food legume crops in their fields for domestic consumption. This, however, could be possible if farmers are provided with new cultivars with high yield, and resistance to major insects, diseases, and key abiotic stresses. The major food legume crops are chickpea, cowpea, common bean, groundnut, lentil, pigeonpea, and soybean. Predominantly, the legume crops are grown under a subsistence level and, therefore, in comparison to cereals and horticultural crops their productivity is low and highly variable. The crop breeders around the globe are engaged in breeding suitable cultivars for harsh and changing environments but success has been limited and not up to needs. With the recent development of new technologies in plant sciences, efforts are being made to help under-privileged farmers through breeding new cultivars which will produce more protein per unit of land area. In this book, the contributors analyze the constraints, review new technologies, and propose a future course of crop breeding programs in seven cold and warm season legume crops.

This book covers information on the economics; botany, taxonomy, and origin; germplasm resources; cytogenetics and nuclear DNA; genetic improvement efforts of scion cultivars; genetic and genomic improvement efforts of rootstocks; genetic and physical mapping; genomic resources; genome and epigenome; regulatory sequences; utility of whole-genome sequencing and gene editing in trait dissection; flowering and juvenility; cold hardiness and dormancy; fruit color development; fruit acidity and sugar content; metabolomics; biology and genomics of the microbiome; apple domestication; as well as other 'omics' opportunities and challenges for genetic improvement of the apple. The cultivated apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) is one of the most important tree fruit crops of temperate regions of the world. It is widely cultivated and grown in North America, Europe, and Asia. The apple fruit is a highly desirable fruit due to its flavor, sugar and acid content, metabolites, aroma, as well as its overall texture and palatability. Furthermore, it is a rich source of important nutrients, including antioxidants, vitamins, and dietary fiber.

This book reports on the current global status of mungbean and its economic importance. Mungbean (Vigna radiata)-also called green gram-is an important food and cash crop in the rice-based farming systems of South and Southeast Asia, but is also grown in other parts of the world. Its short duration, low input requirement and high global demand make mungbean an ideal rotation crop for smallholder farmers. The book describes mungbean collections maintained by various organizations and their utilization, especially with regard to adapting mungbean to new environments. It provides an overview of the progress made in breeding for tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses; nutritional quality enhancement including genomics approaches; and outlines future challenges for mungbean cultivation. In addition, genomic approaches to evaluating the evolutionary relationship between Vigna species and addressing questions concerning domestication, adaptation and genotype-phenotype relationships are also discussed

This book describes the history of tobacco genomics, from its "discovery" by Europeans to next-generation omics approaches in plant science. The authors primarily focus on the allotetraploid common tobacco plant (N. tabacum); however, separate chapters are dedicated to closely related Nicotiana species, such as N. benthamiana and N. attenuata, for which substantial progress in omics data analysis has been already achieved. While genetic maps, transcriptomes, and physical maps of BAC libraries have significantly enhanced our understanding of the tobacco plant, the genome of tobacco and related Nicotiana species has opened a new era in modern tobacco research. This book addresses current and future industrial and research applications as well as central challenges in tobacco science, including diseases, low variability of cultivars, the genome's large size, polyploidy, and gene duplication.

This book offers comprehensive information on the genomics of spruces (Picea spp.), naturally abundant conifer tree species that are widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. Due to their tremendous ecological and economic importance, the management of forest genetic resources has chiefly focused on conservation and tree improvement. A draft genome sequence of the 20-gigabase Norway spruce genome was published in the journal Nature in 2013. Continuous efforts to improve the spruce genome assembly are underway, but are hindered by the inherent characteristics of conifer genomes: high amounts of repetitive sequences (introns and transposable elements) in the genome and large gene family expansions with regards to abiotic stress, secondary metabolism and spruces' defense responses to pathogens and herbivory. This book presents the latest information on the status of genome assemblies, provides detailed insights into transposable elements and methylation patterns, and highlights the extensive genomic resources available for inferring population genomics and climate adaptation, as well as emerging genomics tools for tree improvement programs. In addition, this volume features whole-genome comparisons among conifer species, and demonstrates how functional genomics can be used to improve gene function annotations. The book closes with an outlook on emerging fields of research in spruce genomics.

Now available in paperback, Molecular Plant Breeding provides an integrative overview of issues from basic theories to their applications to crop improvement. Chapters include discussions of breeding methodology, quantitative genetics, genomics and bioinformatics and present statistical issues related to gene mapping, marker-assisted selection and genotype by environment interactions in clear and concise language. Providing an integrated profile of molecular breeding in plants, this book will be an essential resource for researchers and students involved in plant biology and breeding, genetics and applied genomics.

Fruit development and seed dispersal are major topics within plant and crop sciences research with important developments in research being reported regularly. Drawing together reviews by some of the world's leading experts in these areas, the Editor of this volume, Lars Ostergaard has provided a volume which is an essential purchase for all those working in plant and crop sciences worldwide.