Novel Plant Bioresources: Applications in Food, Medicine and Cosmetics serves as the definitive source of information on under-utilized plant species, and fills a key niche in our understanding of ...the relationship of human beings with under-utilized plants. By covering applications in food, medicine and cosmetics, the book has a broad appeal. In a climate of growing awareness about the perils of biodiversity loss, the world is witnessing an unprecedented interest in novel plants, which are increasingly prized for their potential use in aromas, dyes, foods, medicines and cosmetics. This book highlights these plants and their uses. After an introductory section which sets the scene with an overview of the historical and legislative importance of under-utilized plants, the main four parts of the book are dedicated to the diverse potential application of novel plant bioresources in Food, Medicine, Ethnoveterinary Medicine and Cosmetics. Examples and contributors are drawn from Africa, Europe, the USA and Asia. The economic, social, and cultural aspects of under-utilized plant species are addressed, and the book provides a much needed boost to the on-going effort to focus attention on under-utilized plant species and conservation initiatives. By focusing on novel plants and the agenda for sustainable utilization, Novel Plant Bioresources highlights key issues relevant to under-utilized plant genetic resources, and brings together international scholars on this important topic.
Farmers' bounty Brush, Stephen B
2004, 20040610, 2008, 2004-07-02
eBook, Book
Biological diversity is as crucial in agriculture as it is in nature, and it is equally important to the economic health of both industrial and nonindustrial societies. This book offers a sweeping ...assessment of crop diversity and the potential for its preservation. Stephen B. Brush develops a framework for investigating biological diversity in agriculture that focuses on the knowledge and practice of farmers, and he shows how this human ecology perspective can be applied to three global issues that affect crop resources.Brush defines the dimensions of crop diversity and outlines the essential questions surrounding it. He describes the techniques used to maintain diversity in major crops of three cradles of agriculture in which he has worked: potatoes in the Peruvian Andes, maize in Mexico, and wheat in Turkey. Finally, he explores the policy issues surrounding genetic erosion of crop varieties, conservation of crop diversity, and ownership of genetic resources.
Long-term conservation of more than 7 million plant germplasm accessions in 1750 genebanks worldwide is a challenging mission. The extent of deleterious mutations present in conserved germplasm and ...the genetic risk associated with accumulative mutations are largely unknown. This study took advantage of published barley genomic data to predict sample-wise mutation burdens for 19,778 domesticated barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) accessions conserved ex situ. It was found that the conserved germplasm harbored 407 deleterious mutations and 337 (or 82%) identified deleterious alleles were present in 20 (or 0.1%) or fewer barley accessions. Analysis of the predicted mutation burdens revealed significant differences in mutation burden for several groups of barley germplasm (landrace > cultivar (or higher burden estimate in landrace than in cultivar); winter barley > spring barley; six-rowed barley > two-rowed barley; and 1000-accession core collection > non-core germplasm). Significant differences in burden estimate were also found among seven major geographical regions. The sample-wise predicted mutation burdens were positively correlated with the estimates of sample average pairwise genetic difference. These findings are significant for barley germplasm management and utilization and for a better understanding of the genetic risk in conserved plant germplasm.
This book examines the challenges faced by farmers trying to maintain crop biodiversity in developing and transitional economies. Using a collection of empirical case studies of farmers and crop ...scientists across a range of agricultural economies and income levels, it presents economic tools and methods for valuing and managing crop biodiversity. It discusses the economic benefits of crop biodiversity for farmers and suggests ways in which crop biodiversity can be supported by national policies. The book provides an indispensable 'tool kit' for all those concerned with the development of strategies to facilitate sustainable management and conservation of crop genetic diversity for future generations.
Genome editing using CRISPR-Cas9 works efficiently in plant cells
, but delivery of genome-editing machinery into the vast majority of crop varieties is not possible using established methods
. We ...co-opted the aberrant reproductive process of haploid induction (HI)
to induce edits in nascent seeds of diverse monocot and dicot species. Our method, named HI-Edit, enables direct genomic modification of commercial crop varieties. HI-Edit was tested in field and sweet corn using a native haploid-inducer line
and extended to dicots using an engineered CENH3 HI system
. We also recovered edited wheat embryos using Cas9 delivered by maize pollen. Our data indicate that a transient hybrid state precedes uniparental chromosome elimination in maize HI. Edited haploid plants lack both the haploid-inducer parental DNA and the editing machinery. Therefore, edited plants could be used in trait testing and directly integrated into commercial variety development.
Assessing genetic distinctness and redundancy is an important part of plant germplasm characterization. Over the last decade, such assessment has become more feasible and informative, thanks to the ...advances in genomic analysis. An attempt was made here to search for genebank germplasm with published genomic data and to assess their genetic distinctness and redundancy based on average pairwise dissimilarity (APD). The effort acquired 12 published genomic data sets from CIMMYT, IPK, USDA-ARS, IRRI, and ICRISAT genebanks. The characterized collections consisted of 661 to 55,879 accessions with up to 2.4 million genome-wide SNPs. The assessment generated an APD estimate for each sample. As a higher or lower APD is indicative of more genetic distinctness or redundance for an accession, respectively, these APD estimates helped to identify the most genetically distinct and redundant groups of 100 accessions each and a genetic outlier group with APD estimates larger than five standard deviations in each data set. An APD-based grouping of the conserved germplasm in each data set revealed among-group variances ranging from 1.5 to 53.4% across all data sets. Additional analyses showed that these APD estimations were more sensitive to SNP number, minor allele frequency, and missing data. Generally, 5000 to 10,000 genome-wide SNPs were required for an effective APD analysis. These findings together are encouraging and useful for germplasm management, utilization, and conservation, particularly in the genetic categorization of conserved germplasm.
Recognition of tea plant variety and grade is essential for tea germplasm resources protection. The rapid and accurate acquisition of phenotype of tea leaves is a crucial step in exploring the ...variety type, nutrition status, and yield prediction. Monitoring the phenotypic characteristics of tea leaves is necessary for intelligent tea germplasm management. This study analyzed phenotypic features of tea leaves based on multispectral imaging technology. Tea leaf images of 12242 sets from 25 different types, along with 61 groups of chemical characteristics of fresh tea leaves were obtained. A total of 92 indicators were extracted, and 38 indicators were screened using the successive projection algorithm and the shuffled frog leaping algorithm, which showed significant differences among different tea varieties. The phenotypic indexes of different tea varieties were analyzed, and a tea variety recognition model was established based on these indexes combined with gray wolf optimization-support vector machine algorithm. The average accuracy of the training, test, and validation sets were 99.74 %, 92.17 %, and 91.56 %, respectively. Additionally, quantitative evaluation for tea plant germplasm resources was explored. Stepwise Fisher discriminant analysis was used to identify the 61 tea plant germplasm resources, achieving an accuracy of 93.44 % with the discrimination accuracy of each grade is above 90 %.
•Multispectral imaging technique can be used to obtain tea leaf phenotype quickly.•Tea leaf phenotypic information can realize accurate identification of tea variety.•Multispectral information of leaf can identify tea germplasm grade.
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