Plant Breeding Reviews presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant genetics and the breeding of all types of crops by both traditional means and molecular methods. Many of the crops widely grown today stem from a very narrow genetic base; understanding and preserving crop genetic resources is vital to the security of food systems worldwide. The emphasis of the series is on methodology, a fundamental understanding of crop genetics, and applications to major crops. It is a serial title that appears in the form of one or two volumes per year.

Botanists are on the case, trying to solve the mystery of the black rose: does it exist? Has it ever? It seems that the only solid fact surrounding this flower is that people have been searching for it for centuries--and are still searching today. The first references to extremely dark red roses were made in early botanist literature, and at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, drawings of such roses were widely circulated. And, according to a spokesman of the Flowers and Plants Association, "Black flowers were beloved of the art nouveau designers at the previous turn of the century. Victorians and Edwardians at the cutting edge of fashion collected them, going to great lengths to track down exotic species." Today, the desire for unique blooms continues, prompting environmental consultant James Reynolds to write in March 2005: "Those looking for a riot of color at this year's flower shows are in for disappointment: black is back and this time it is set to take a hold over the nation's gardens. Just as floral prints have been banished from the house in favor of muted tones and minimalism, so the same is set to happen in our gardens and parks, with black flowers now the must-have item." Through extensive and detailed research, "The Quest for the Black Rose" presents the complete story of the elusive flower--from the oldest historical drawings up to the most recent developments. This publication, with its stunning photography, is sure to be treasured by any rose lover... or anyone intrigued by a good mystery.

For centuries orchids have been among the most popular of plant families, with thousands of species and hybrids cultivated worldwide for the diversity, beauty, and intricacy of their flowers. The Genera Orchidacearum series represents a robust and natural classification of the orchids, something that has eluded plant scientists and orchid enthusiasts for years. The editors, who are all distinguished orchid specialists, incorporate a wealth of new DNA data into a truly phylogenetic classification, identifying the areas and taxa that merit additional work. To this end, they have invited several international specialists to contribute in their particular areas of expertise. Each volume provides comprehensive coverage of one or two orchid subfamilies, and the series as a whole will be an indispensable reference tool for scientists, orchid breeders, and growers. Orchidaceae is the largest monocotyledon family and perhaps the largest plant family in terms of number of species, approximately 25,000. Although the fossil record is limited, active molecular research in recent years has unravelled many of the complexities and phylogenetics of this cosmopolitan plant family. This sixth and final volume treats 140 genera in tribes Dendrobieae and Vandeae of the largest subfamily, Epidendroideae, including some of the showiest orchids often used in hybridizing. Comprehensive treatments are provided for each genus, which include complete nomenclature, description, distribution (with map), anatomy, palynology, cytogenetics, phytochemistry, phylogenetics, pollination, ecology, and economic uses. Cultivation notes are included for those genera known to be in hobbyist collections. Genera are beautifully illustrated with line drawings and colour photographs. An Addendum updates a few generic accounts published in past volumes. A cumulative glossary, list of generic synonyms with their equivalents, and list of all series contributors round out this final volume in the series.

The flowering plants now dominate the terrestrial ecosystems of the planet, and there are good reasons for supposing that the flower itself has been a major contributing factor to the spread of the Angiosperms. The flowers of higher plants not only contain the organs of plant reproduction but are of fundamental importance in giving rise to fruits and seeds which constitute a major component of the human diet.
This volume opens with a chapter describing a model for the evolution of the Angiosperm flower. Chapters 2 to 5 describe the core development of the flower and include floral induction, floral pattering and organ initiation, floral shape and size, and inflorescence architecture. Chapters 6 to 8 focus on more specialised aspects of floral development: monoecy, cytoplasmic male sterility and flowering in perennials. Chapters 9 and 10 address more functional aspects: flower colour and scent. The book concludes, appropriately, with a chapter on flower senescence.
Applied aspects are stressed wherever appropriate, and the book is directed at researchers and professionals in plant genetics, developmental and molecular biology.
The volume has been designed to complement an earlier volume in our Annual Plant Reviews series, O'Neill, S. D. and Roberts, J. A. (2002) Plant Reproduction.

The first volume to address the study of evolutionary transitions in plants, "Major Evolutionary Transitions in Flowering Plant Reproduction" brings together compelling work from the three areas of significant innovation in plant biology: evolution and adaptation in flowers and pollination, mating patterns and gender strategies, and asexual reproduction and polyploidy. Spencer C. H. Barrett assembles here a distinguished group of authors who address evolutionary transitions using comparative and phylogenetic approaches, the tools of genomics, population genetics, and theoretical modeling, and through studies in development and field experiments in ecology. With special focus on evolutionary transitions and shifts in reproductive characters--key elements of biological diversification and research in evolutionary biology--"Major Evolutionary Transitions in Flowering Plant Reproduction "is the most up-to-date treatment of a fast-moving area of evolutionary biology and ecology. ""

Containing contributions from experts from the USA, Europe and New Zealand, this book provides an overview of the molecular mechanisms associated with flowering. The first edition was published in 1993 as The Molecular Biology of Flowering. The second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover the major advances that have been made in the area in the last thirteen years. It has also been extended to examine the new commercial opportunities provided by biotechnology. It explores three main themes: the external and internal regulation of flowering, floral development, and fertilisation and gametophyte development, and includes new chapters on the evolution of flowers, floral senescence and apomixis.

This book reports the latest research and successful industrial case studies on sustainable technologies in the oil palm industry, ranging from plantation, processing to waste handling. It covers the latest developments on harvesting, refining, nanomaterial production, aviation biofuel, biomass supply chain and waste treatment and handling. This book is a continuation of a previously published Springer book 'Green Technologies for the Oil Palm Industry' and is intended for industrial practitioners and academics interested in sustainable technologies for palm oil milling processes.

As increasing global population and continuing economic development ensure the need for further production and cultivation of maize, the necessity of the application of transgenic technology to this model species and crop plant grows steadily. In Transgenic Maize: Methods and Protocols, experts in the various disciplines of the field contribute readily reproducible protocols covering such topics as transformation methods, transgenic maize in research, the analysis of transgenic plants, and breeding with transgenes. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology(TM) series format, the chapters present brief introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step laboratory protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

Cutting-edge and easy to use, Transgenic Maize: Methods and Protocols will greatly aid researchers wishing to use these procedures in their own laboratories, and will provide readers with a better understanding of the experiments being performed by cooperators or fee-for-service labs.

This book delves in detail the intimate functioning of the flower, whether it is on the biochemical, cellular, molecular, or the organism scale. It explains the form and function of the flower, not only from the physiology and developmental biology as-pects, but also from ecology and evolutionary sciences, integrating genetic, demo-graphic, and biogeographical perspectives.

This book focuses on the production technology of temperate nuts. It explores cultivar and plant improvement, development and selection of rootstocks, plant–water relations and irrigation, canopy architecture, and postharvest packaging of nut fruits. It also deals with organic approaches, biotechnological interventions, diseases, and pest management. Contributing authors address nut fruits such as walnut, pecan nut, chestnut, and hazel nut on different recent aspects. The development achieved in the fruit sector is indicative of the fact that there is growing demand of fruit produce. Temperate nuts with health benefits and market acceptability have best sources of fat, fiber, protein, and mineral. They provide dietary fiber, potassium, and a variety of health-protective bioactive compounds. Apart from the health benefits, production of temperate nuts improves the economy of the country as these are very good source of income and employment. In addition, there is wide diversification in the production pattern of nuts globally. Increased production technology such as hybrids, high-yielding selections/ varieties, improved propagation techniques, and increased use of fertilizers and manures have brought spectacular increase in the production of nut fruits. This book is of interest to teachers, scientists, researchers, and scholars. Also, the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and postgraduate students of agriculture and horticulture. Horticulture nurseries and orchard industries also find this to be a useful read.

This book covers important topics on various neglected and underutilised crops (vegetables, cereals, fruit crops). It gives an overview of the potential, availability of genetic and genomic resources, and the future prospects of these food crops. The book presents different chapters on the importance of underutilised crops with respect to sustainable agriculture and describes the approaches that must be followed for improving the yield and production of these crops. It covers a wide range of food crops such as millet, buckwheat, underutilised spices, underutilised vegetables and underutilised fruit crops. It also provides insights on what smart foods are? And, whether these neglected crops qualify as smart foods? This up-to-date and informative book is meant for food scientists, geneticists, breeders and biotechnologists. It is of interest to students, researchers and course instructors in these fields.

Microbes are ubiquitous in nature, and plant-microbe interactions are a key strategy for colonizing diverse habitats. The plant microbiome (epiphytic, endophytic and rhizospheric) plays an important role in plant growth and development and soil health. Further, rhizospheric soil is a valuable natural resource, hosting hotspots of microbes, and is vital in the maintenance of global nutrient balance and ecosystem function. The term endophytic microbes refers to those microorganisms that colonize the interior the plants. The phyllosphere is a common niche for synergism between microbes and plants and includes the leaf surface. The diverse group of microbes are key components of soil-plant systems, and where they are engaged in an extensive network of interactions in the rhizosphere/endophytic/phyllospheric they have emerged as an important and promising tool for sustainable agriculture. Plant microbiomes help to directly or indirectly promote plant growth using plant growth promoting attributes, and could potentially be used as biofertilizers/bioinoculants in place of chemical fertilizers. This book allows readers to gain an understanding of microbial diversity associated with plant systems and their role in plant growth, and soil health. Offering an overview of the state of the art in plant microbiomes and their potential biotechnological applications in agriculture and allied sectors, it is a valuable resource for scientists, researchers and students in the field of microbiology, biotechnology, agriculture, molecular biology, environmental biology and related subjects.

An understanding of crop physiology and ecophysiology enables the horticulturist to manipulate a plant's metabolism towards the production of compounds that are beneficial for human health when that plant is part of the diet or the source of phytopharmaceutical compounds. The first part of the book introduces the concept of Controlled Environment Horticulture as a horticultural production technique used to maximize yields via the optimization of access to growing factors. The second part describes the use of this production technique in order to induce stress responses in the plant via the modulation of these growing factors and, importantly, the way that this manipulation induces defence reactions in the plant resulting in the production of compounds beneficial for human health. The third part provides guidance for the implementation of this knowledge in horticultural production.

Plant embryology, dealing with the regularities of initiation and the first stages of development of an organism, is now flourishing because of the overall progress being made in natural sciences. Such discoveries of the 20th century as production of plants from a single somatic cell, experimental haploidy, and parasexual hybridization were of general biological significance. The combined efforts of embryologists, geneticists and molecular biologists yielded the discovery of specific genes that control meiosis, egg cell development and early stages of embryogenesis. The tendency to synthesize data of embryology and genetics has become increasingly noticeable. It is connected with the fact that the majority of problems connected with morphogenesis, such as differentiation, specialization, the evaluation of features and the definition of the notionsgene and feature andgenotype and phenotype concern embryology and genetics (embryogenetics) in one way or another. Evolutionary embryology has given rise to a new approach to the study of problems of adaptation in plants. In connection with the problem of preserving biological diversity under conditions of ecological stress, special attention is paid to ecological embryology, revealing the critical periods in early ontogenesis and plasticity and tolerance of reproductive systems at the level of species and population. The study of variability of morphogenesis and phenotype in population (life cycle variations and the diversity of reproductive systems) is the most important point in the population embryology of plants.

In the second volume of this three-volume series, leading researchers in genomics and agriculure present a general discussion on the fundamentals of molecular breeding and applications of molecular markers for germplasm characterization, They investigate basic concepts and the application of molecular mapping and breeding to create improved yield and quality, as well as desired related component traits; limiting biotic and abiotic stresses; and improving physiological traits of economic importance.

in the conservation and use of global plant genetic resources for sustainable agricultural production, Global Plant Genetic Resources for Insect-Resistant Crops explores plant biodiversity, its preservation, and its use to develop crops resistant to pests, thereby reducing world-wide use of chemical pesticides. Topics addressed include:

Genetically transformed or 'hairy' roots are used in a wide variety of research applications, and have received an increasing amount of attention over the past decade. As this area continues to be a fast moving field of scientific endeavour.

Soil is the most important natural non-renewable resource developed over a longer period of time due to weathering of rocks and subsequently enrichment of organic matter. Soil provides habitat for numerous microorganisms and serves as a natural medium for plant growth, thereby providing the plants with anchorage, nutrients and water to sustain the growth. Soil also serves as a universal sink for all types of pollutants, purifies ground water and is a major reserve of carbon in the universe. The role of soils to provide ecosystem services, maintenance of environmental/human health and ensuring the food security makes it as the most important and basic natural resource. Soil Science helps us to elaborate and understand how the soils provide all these services. Soil Science also provides us the basic knowledge dealing with the origin of the soil parent material, weathering of parent material and the formation of soils, morphological, physico-chemical and biological features of soils, classification of soils and role of soils in the provision and maintenance of ecosystem services, food security and environmental quality. This book encompasses the various processes, functions and behaviour of soils very comprehensively to acquaint the students of soil, plant and environmental sciences about their role to perform different agricultural and environmental functions.

Development of transgenic crop plants, their utilization for improved agriculture, health, ecology and environment and their socio-political impacts are currently important fields in education, research and industries and also of interest to policy makers, social activists and regulatory and funding agencies. This work prepared with a class-room approach on this multidisciplinary subject will fill an existing gap and meet the requirements of such a broad section of readers.

Human population is escalating at an enormous pace and is estimated to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. As a result, there will be an increase in demand for agricultural production by 60-110% between the years 2005 and 2050 at the global level; the number will be even more drastic in the developing world. Pathogens, animals, and weeds are altogether responsible for between 20 to 40 % of global agricultural productivity decrease. As such, managing disease development in plants continues to be a major strategy to ensure adequate food supply for the world. Accordingly, both the public and private sectors are moving to harness the tools and paradigms that promise resistance against pests and diseases. While the next generation of disease resistance research is progressing, maximum disease resistance traits are expected to be polygenic in nature and controlled by selective genes positioned at putative quantitative trait loci (QTLs). It has also been realized that sources of resistance are generally found in wild relatives or cultivars of lesser agronomic significance. However, introgression of disease resistance traits into commercial crop varieties typically involves many generations of backcrossing to transmit a promising genotype. Molecular marker-assisted breeding (MAB) has been found to facilitate the pre-selection of traits even prior to their expression. To date, researchers have utilized disease resistance genes (R-genes) in different crops including cereals, pulses, and oilseeds and other economically important plants, to improve productivity. Interestingly, comparison of different R genes that empower plants to resist an array of pathogens has led to the realization that the proteins encoded by these genes have numerous features in common. The above observation therefore suggests that plants may have co-evolved signal transduction pathways to adopt resistance against a wide range of divergent pathogens. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms necessary for pathogen identification and a thorough dissection of the cellular responses to biotic stresses will certainly open new vistas for sustainable crop disease management. This book summarizes the recent advances in molecular and genetic techniques that have been successfully applied to impart disease resistance for plants and crops. It integrates the contributions from plant scientists targeting disease resistance mechanisms using molecular, genetic, and genomic approaches. This collection therefore serves as a reference source for scientists, academicians and post graduate students interested in or are actively engaged in dissecting disease resistance in plants using advanced genetic tools.

The adv antages of those systems are counterbalanced by some important dis- vantages. For one, in heterotrophic and mixotrophic systems high concentrations of organic ingredients are required in the nutrient medium (particularly sugar at 2% or more), associated with a high risk of microbial contamination. How, and to which extent this can be avoided will be dealt with in Chapter 3. Other disadvantages are the difficulties and limitations of extrapolating results based on tissue or cell c- tures, to interpreting phenomena occurring in an intact plant during its development. It has always to be kept in mind that tissue cultures are only model systems, with all positive and negative characteristics inherent of such experimental setups. To be realistic, a direct duplication of in situ conditions in tissue culture systems is still not possible even today in the 21st century, and probably never will be. The organization of the genetic system and of basic cell structures is, however, essentially the same, and therefore tissue cultures of higher plants should be better suited as model s- tems than, e.g., cultures of algae, often employed as model systems in physiological or biochemical investigations. The domain cell and tissue culture is rather broad, and necessarily unspecif ic. In terms of practical aspects, basically five areas can be distinguished (see Figs. 1.1, 1.2 ), which here shall be briefly surveyed before being discussed later at length.

This volume is the most comprehensive and detailed account of seed proteins so far published and the first dedicated volume for a number of years. It covers the major storage protein groups (prolamins, 2S albumins, 7Sglobulins, and 11S globulins), focusing on those present in crops. It also covers other widely distributed groups of proteins including lectins, inhibitors, antifungal proteins, thionins and oil body protein (oleosins). The breadth of coverage of the proteins is wide, including their structures and properties, evolutionary relationships, classical and molecular genetics and mechanisms of synthesis, trafficking and deposition within the cells. It should therefore become a standard source book for active research scientists as well as for higher level teaching.

Comprising about one hundred plates this atlas documents and describes the processes concerning the sexual reproduction in higher plants. It is dividedinto three parts: - Anther Development - Pistil Development - Progamic Phase and Fertilization. The scanning, transmission electron and light micrographs are all of immaculate quality and - for the viewer's orientation - almost each plate is complemented by a scheme showing a larger area of the plant indicating the site of the section. Together with instructive texts, the often striking images provide a valuable introduction into plant reproductive cell structures for researchers and advanced students of genetics, plantbreeding and cell biology.

Provided here are both the underlying theory and recent results concerning the propagation and use of clones in research and in production forestry. State-of-the-art science and case histories treating production, testing, multiplication and deployment of clones are presented. Agroforestry, urban forestry and Christmas tree farming are covered, along with more traditional multiple-use forestry and high-intensity forestry for biomass, wood and fibre production. Clonal forestry is contrasted with the more recent developments of "family forestry", and the classical tree-improvement approach relying on seed-orchards. The history of clonal forestry is covered with reviews of several centuries' experience with sugi in Japan and poplars in Europe. The impact and use of clones in the context of genetic conservation and bio-diversity are discussed, as are the laws and regulations affecting clonal production and deployment.