Plant hormone research is the favorite topic of physiologists. Past three decades have witnessed that this subject has received much attention. The inquisitive nature of human mind has pumped much in literature on this subject and this volume is the product of such minds. In the following pages various hormonal-controlled physiological processes like, flowering, seed dormancy and germination, enzyme secretion, senes cence, ion transport, fruit ripening, root growth and development, thig momorphogenesis and tendril thigmonasty have been included. The volume also contains a review paper on 'Growth Regulating Activity of Penicillin in Higher Plants' and has been presented for the first time. The vast contents of each review paper have been written by erudite scholars who have admirably carried out their evangelic task to make the text up TO date. This volume, I am sure, would stimulate the appetite of researchers of peripheral disciplines of botany and agricultural sciences and they will continue to enjoy the fun and adventures of plant hormone research. Save one. my most outstanding debts are due to the rich array of the contributors and other plant physiologists specially to Prof. Thomas Gaspar (Belgium), Prof. E. E. Goldschmidt (Isreal), Prof. H. Greppin (Switzerland), Dr. K. Gurumurti (India), Prof. M. A. Hall (U. K. ), Prof. H. Harada (Japan), Dr. M. Kaminek (Czechoslovakia), Dr. J. L. Karm oker (BangIa Desh), Prof. Peter B. Kaufman (U. S. A. ), Dr. V. I. Kefeli . / (U. S. S. R. ), Dr. M. Kutaoek (Czechoslovakia), Prof. S."

This book provides in-depth insights into the regulatory frameworks of five countries and the EU concerning the regulation of genome edited plants. The country reports form the basis for a comparative analysis of the various national regulations governing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in general and genome edited plants in particular, as well as the underlying regulatory approaches.The reports, which focus on the regulatory status quo of genome edited plants in Argentina, Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan and the USA, were written by distinguished experts following a uniform structure. On this basis, the legal frameworks are compared in order to foster a rational assessment of which approaches could be drawn upon to adjust, or to completely realign, the current EU regime for GMOs. In addition, a separate chapter identifies potential best practices for the regulation of plants derived from genome editing.

Proceedings of a Seminar in the CEC Programme of Research on Plant Protein Improvement, held in Copenhagen 11th-13th September 1984

This book has a wider approach not strictly focused on crop production compared to other books that are strictly oriented towards bees, but has a generalist approach to pollination biology. It also highlights relationships between introduced and wild pollinators and consequences of such introductions on communities of wild pollinating insects. The chapters on biochemical basis of plant-pollination interaction, pollination energetics, climate change and pollinators and pollinators as bioindicators of ecosystem functioning provide a base for future insights into pollination biology. The role of honeybees and wild bees on crop pollination, value of bee pollination, planned honeybee pollination, non-bee pollinators, safety of pollinators, pollination in cages, pollination for hybrid seed production, the problem of diseases, genetically modified plants and bees, the role of bees in improving food security and livelihoods, capacity building and awareness for pollinators are also discussed.

Environmental, Physiological and Chemical Controls of Adventitious Rooting in Cuttings provides a review of the environmental, physiological and chemical controls of adventitious rooting in cuttings obtained from plants. In plants, adventitious roots, which are highly useful for vegetative propagation (or clonal propagation) are produced mainly from leaves, hypocotyls, stems or shoots. Vegetative propagation may occur naturally by using propagules such as roots, underground and aerial stems, leaves, buds and bulbils. It may also be done artificially through regenerative organs (rhizomes, bulbs, and corms) and by utilizing specialized methods, like cutting, grafting and layering. This book covers the latest tactics surrounding these processes. As a plethora of factors affect the adventitious rooting of cuttings, adding to the complexity of the phenomenon. The main factors which control adventitious root formation are types of cuttings, presence of leaf area on cuttings, types of hormones and their concentration, duration of hormonal treatment (quick dip, long soak, dry dip, spray dip, or total immerse method), maturation (juvenile or mature), genotype, explant position, and more, all of which are discussed here.

This book provides up-to-date information on the environmental impact of transgenic trees on genetically modified tree (GMT) communication strategy. It is useful to public/private organisations as well as to private and public research bodies and universities worldwide since it reports on the global status of GMT research and policy. A high number of genetically modified trees (GMTs) with altered or novel characteristics have been produced in the last 15 years. However, their very low public acceptance is a basic problem in their commercialization. Breeders anticipate economic and ecological benefits, like reduced product costs and less pressure on native forests, while opponents fear risks, such as unintended spread of GMTs. But what is true? To answer this question, the COST Action FP0905 focused on key aspects related to GMTs: (a) biological characterization; (b) assessment of possible environmental impacts; (c) socio-economic implications and public acceptance/concerns; (d) providing science-based information to communicate with the public.

In the series of International Protoplast Symposia the Symposium of 1987 was held in Wageningen (The Netherlands). Earlier Symposia took place in Jena (DDR) 1963, Brno (CSSR) 1967, Salamanca (Spain) 1971, Nottingham (UK) 1975, Szeged (Hungary) 1979 and Basel (Switzerland) 1983. This 7th International Protoplast Symposium was organized by K.J. Puite (Secretary), J.J.M. Dons (Treasurer), H.J.Huizing and E.J.L. Hotke-Staal (Local Organizers), the first three persons being scientists, respectively, from the Research Institute Ital, the Institute for horticultural plant breeding IVT and the Foundation for agricultural plant breeding SVP at Wageningen. Scientific Advisers of the Symposium were A. J. Kool, M. Koornneef and F.A. Krens. The International Agricultural Centre lAC served as the Symposium location. The Organizing Committee decided that the scientific programme of the Symposium should be mainly focussed on protoplast technology of relevance to plant breeding. Therefore research on microbial protoplasts and on secondary metabolites was not included. About 250 scientists from 27 different countries were welcomed at the meeting. Speakers at Symposium Sessions and authors of Poster contributions were asked to hand over their manuscripts for the Symposium Proceedings already at the meeting, permit ting early publication of the Proceedings. These manuscripts give the state of the art of the protoplast research and illustrate the progress since the last Protoplast Symposium.

Fungal nanotechnology has great prospects for developing new products with industrial, agricultural, medicinal, and consumer applications in a wide range of sectors. The fields of chemical engineering, agri-food, biochemistry, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and medical device development all employ fungal products, with fungal nanomaterials currently used in applications ranging from drug development to the food industry and agricultural biotechnology. Fungal agents are an environmentally friendly, clean, non-toxic agent for the synthesis of metal nanoparticles and employ both intracellular and extracellular methods. The simplicity of scaling up and downstream processing and the presence of fungal mycelia which afford an increased surface area provide key advantages. In addition, the large spectrum of synthesized nanoparticle morphologies and the substantially faster biosynthesis rate in cell-free filtrate (due to the higher amount of proteins secreted in fungi) make this a particularly enticing route. Understanding the diversity of fungi in assorted ecosystems, as well as their interactions with other microorganisms, animals, and plants, underpins real and innovative technological developments and the applications of metal nanoparticles in many disciplines including agriculture, catalysis, and biomedical biosensors. Importantly, biogenic fungal nanoparticles show significant synergistic characteristics when combined with antibiotics and fungicides to offer substantially greater resistance to microbial growth and applications in nanomedicine ranging from topical ointments and bandages for wound healing to coated stents.

For all undergraduate courses in plant propagation at the two-year and four-year colleges and universities. The world standard for plant propagation and horticulture for over 50 years, Hartmann and Kester's Plant Propagation continues to be the field's most complete, up-to-date text on plant propagation. It now contains color figures throughout, promoting learning and making it an even more useful working text and reference. It also contains extensive updates reflecting the latest commercial techniques and understanding of propagation biology. Like previous editions, it is organized into paired chapters on principles and practices, so it can easily be adapted for teaching courses that cover only practical topics, and for courses that also cover conceptual issues.

This book presents recent research on natural fibers extracted from pineapple leaves. Covering several extraction processes, properties of pineapple leaf fibers and comparisons with other natural fibers, and their applications, it provides up-to-date information on the subject of natural fibers from prominent researchers in academia and industry as well as government/private research laboratories across the world. The book is a comprehensive reference resource for university and college faculties, professionals, postdoctoral research fellows, undergraduate/graduate students, researchers and scientists working in the areas of non-forest product utilization, natural fibers, and biomass materials.

Plants have to manage a series of environmental stresses throughout their entire lifespan. Among these, abiotic stress is the most detrimental; one that is responsible for nearly 50% of crop yield reduction and appears to be a potential threat to global food security in coming decades. Plant growth and development reduces drastically due to adverse effects of abiotic stresses. It has been estimated that crop can exhibit only 30% of their genetic potentiality under abiotic stress condition. So, this is a fundamental need to understand the stress responses to facilitate breeders to develop stress resistant and stress tolerant cultivars along with good management practices to withstand abiotic stresses. Also, a holistic approach to understanding the molecular and biochemical interactions of plants is important to implement the knowledge of resistance mechanisms under abiotic stresses. Agronomic practices like selecting cultivars that is tolerant to wide range of climatic condition, planting date, irrigation scheduling, fertilizer management could be some of the effective short-term adaptive tools to fight against abiotic stresses. In addition, "system biology" and "omics approaches" in recent studies offer a long-term opportunity at the molecular level in dealing with abiotic stresses. The genetic approach, for example, selection and identification of major conditioning genes by linkage mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL), production of mutant genes and transgenic introduction of novel genes, has imparted some tolerant characteristics in crop varieties from their wild ancestors. Recently research has revealed the interactions between micro-RNAs (miRNAs) and plant stress responses exposed to salinity, freezing stress and dehydration. Accordingly transgenic approaches to generate stress-tolerant plant are one of the most interesting researches to date. This book presents the recent development of agronomic and molecular approaches in conferring plant abiotic stress tolerance in an organized way. The present volume will be of great interest among research students and teaching community, and can also be used as reference material by professional researchers.

This is the first book on the genome of Salvia miltiorrhiza, summarizing the research advances in the molecular mapping, whole genome sequencing, chloroplast and mitochondria genomes, epigenetics, transcriptomics and functional genomics of this emerging model plant with great economic and medicinal value. It also describes its distribution, taxonomy and morphology and provides useful information on its cultivation and breeding. Further, it highlights the biosynthetic pathways of tanshinones and phenolic acids - two main classes of bioactive components produced in this plant species - and reviews and discusses the technology of hairy root induction, tissue culture and genetic transformation of S. miltiorrhiza. The book is a valuable resource for students, teachers and researchers in academia and industry interested in medicinal plants and pharmacy.

This book is a collection of chapters concerning the use of biomass for the sustainable production of energy and chemicals-an important goal that will help decrease the production of greenhouse gases to help mitigate global warming, provide energy security in the face of dwindling petroleum reserves, improve balance of payment problems and spur local economic development. Clearly there are ways to save energy that need to be encouraged more. These include more use of energy sources such as, among others, manure in anaerobic digesters, waste wood in forests as fuel or feedstock for cellulosic ethanol, and conservation reserve program (CRP) land crops that are presently unused in the US. The use of biofuels is not new; Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil as fuel in the ?rst engines he developed (Chap. 8), and ethanol was used in the early 1900s in the US as automobile fuel [Songstad et al. (2009) Historical perspective of biofuels: learning from the past to rediscover the future. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant 45:189-192). Brazil now produces enough sugar cane ethanol to make up about 50% of its transportation fuel needs (Chap. 4). The next big thing will be cellulosic ethanol. At present, there is also the use of Miscanthus x giganteous as fuel for power plants in the UK (Chap. 2), bagasse (sugar cane waste) to power sugar cane mills (Chap. 4), and waste wood and sawdust to power sawmills (Chap. 7).

Topics for the Beltsville Symposia are selected to highlight specific areas of research and science policy that are of concern to scientists in the Beltsville Area as well as to the general scientific community. Each sympo sium in the series is structured to provide a realistic appraisal of current findings, research progress, and relevant policy issues within the constraints established by the organizing committee. Thus, the presentations and dis cussions that have marked these symposia have had a strong appeal to the broad community of scientists. Knowledge of the diversity of living organisms is still quite limited. Since the time of Linnaeus, about 1.7 million species have been described. The actual number has been estimated between 5-50 million. Many species, land races, and strains are vanishing. Clearly, the world's scientific institutions are inadequately equipped to attain sufficient knowledge of a significant fraction of the diverse living forms. Also, efforts in the collection and preservation of germplasm of plants and animals urgently need to be strengthened. These mattes are critically important to future generations. This symposium addresses vital concerns of biotic diversity and germ plasm preservation from diverse perspectives. Many of the parts provide concrete recommendations for action, and they call attention to areas of research that must be pursued with intensity."

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.

Plant breeding has undergone a period of very rapid and significant development in recent years and the area of fruit breeding is no exception. This book provides a balanced, up-to-date and comprehensive account of the developments in the field of breeding tropical and subtropical fruits. It offers not only the theoretical and applied aspects of breedings fruits but also provides an authoritative manual of the conventional and new techniques used for increasing efficiency of crop improvement programmes. In specific chapters the book deals with crop taxonomy, genetic resources, floral biology, breeding objectives, inheritance patterns and information on new improved cultivars/hybrids.

A Seminar in the EEC Programme of Coordination of Research on Plant Protein Improvement

The International Symposium on "Cellular and Molecular Aspects of Biosynthesis and Action of the Plant Hormone Ethylenc" ,vas held in Agen, France from August 31 st and September 4th, 1992. The planning and management of the scientific and social programme of the Conference were carried out jointly by the "Ethylene Research Group" of ENSAlIN"P (Toulouse) and Agropole Congres Service (Agen). Since the last meetings in Israel (1984) and in Belgium (1988), ethylene physiology has gone through a period of exciting progress due to new developments in cellular and molecular bioiogy. New methods and tools have been developed to better understand the role and functions of ethylene in fruit ripening, flower senescence, abscission, piant growth, and cell differentiation. Genes involved in ethylene biosynthesis have been characterized and transgenic plants with altered ethylene production have been generated. The feasibility of delaying fruit ripening or flower senescence by genetic manipulation is now demonstrated, thus opening new perspectives for the postharvest handling of plant products. Some progress has also been made on the understanding of ethylene action. However, much remains to be done in this area to elucidate the ethylene signal transduction pathway. Around 140 scientists from 20 countries attended the Symposium. They presented 47 oral reports and 40 poster demonstrations. All of them are published in these proceedings. It has been a pleasure for us to organize this important Symposium and to edit this book.

This book contains complete information on Capsicum genetic resources, diversity, evolution, history and advances in capsicum improvement from classical breeding to whole genome sequencing, genomics, databases and its impact on next generation pepper breeding. Capsicum is one of the most important Solanaceae crops grown worldwide as vegetables and spices. Due to its high economic value and to meet the demands of enormous population growth amid biotic and abiotic stresses, there has been an ongoing breeding program utilizing available genetic resources with desired traits to increase the sustainable productivity of this crop for several decades. However, the precision breeding of this crop for desired traits only started with the advent of molecular markers. The recent advances in high-throughput genome sequencing technologies helped in the quick decoding of transcriptome, epigenome, nuclear and organeller genomes, thereby enhancing our understanding of the structure and function of the Capsicum genome, and helping in genomics assisted breeding. These advanced technologies coupled with conventional mapping have greatly contributed towards dissection and manipulation of economically important traits more precisely and made less time consuming.

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.

Asiatic Momordica comprises 10 species of which 3 are monoecious and rest dioecious. They are unique in the sense that all are wild or cultivated vegetables with medicinal uses. Barring bitter gourd, all are under utilized vegetables with little research and conservation efforts. In this book, the authors have presented the available information on various aspects of Asiatic Momordica like taxonomy, cytogenetics, crop improvement, origin, ethnobotany and crop production at one place. The book is well illustrated with color maps and photographs depicting habit, morphology and distribution of individual taxa. Species distribution map for all Indian taxa, descriptor for characterization and preliminary evaluation of dioecious and monoecious group available varieties, keys for botanical identification are some of the unique features of the book. The book will be useful to botanists, horticulturists, foresters, environment educators, conservation biologists, plant science students in general and all interested in agrobiodiversity.

In 1980, a conference on tissue culture of fruit crops was held at Beltsville to summarize the current status of this technology and to stimulate interest in it among research scientists, students, and commercial producers in the U. S. Interest in that conference and the proceedings from it far exceeded the expectations of the organizing committee. Since that time, micropropagation of fruit crops in the U. S. has increased significantly, but still lags far behind applications to production of ornamental plants. Within the past two years, a number of new laboratories have been established and some of the existing laboratories have expanded to a size far larger than any previously anticipated. Creation of new laboratories capable of producing more than 400,000 plants per week will test the ingenuity of laboratory managers and the skills of marketing departments. In recent years, numerous symposia have been held on various aspects of biotechnology and genetic engineering. Although micro propagation is the key to providing large numbers of genetically engineered plants, it is a topic that has been relegated to a minor position, or ignored completely, at such meetings. Accordingly, the time seemed propitious for a conference devoted solely to all aspects of micropropagation as applicable to horticultural crops.

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.