Breeding of Vegetable, Spice and Tuber Crops

The key areas in which biotechnology has application to agriculture include

 

• Multiplication of selected/elite clones from hybrid or specific parental lines and rapid production of disease-free propagates through conventional micro propagation or somatic embryogenesis
• Development of plant varieties, in conjunction with whole plant breeding, through genetic engineering of plant species
• Application of agricultural microbiology to produce microorganisms beneficial to crop cultivation
• Development of techniques, based on the use of monoclonal antibodies and nucleic acid probes, for the diagnosis of plant pests and diseases and the detection of foreign chemicals in food
• Application of genetic mapping techniques, based on the use of molecular markers, as an aid to conventional plant breeding programmes