Abstract
Many plant breeders feel there is little prospect that genetic engineering will make any real contribution to plant improvement programs. We cannot agree, as it is already clear that recombinant DNA technology will make impacts on plant production systems. Diagnostic tools will provide increased power to many selection schemes and increased accuracy in the selection or appropriate parents in breeding programs. Genetic engineering should also make direct contributions to plant improvement by providing additional means of introducing specific genes to the genetic structure of a cultivar. Gene addition should extend the life of many of our most efficient cultivars and enable them to be used in different and more marginal environments. It should enable a plant breeder to respond to yield limitation in a shorter time. It may also significantly reduce the scale of a plant breeding program. Time and scale of operation are probably the principal factors in determining the effectiveness of any plant improvement effort.
All the components of a gene transfer system are presently in place for only one or two commercial crops. However, it should be possible to have effective systems in each of the major crop species in the near future. Gene transfer technologies will increase the range of variation available to a plant breeder for any given crop species and will provide opportunities for quite novel adjustments to the workings of a genome, adjustments which would not have been possible by classical breeding and selection schemes. We feel sure that the analytical power of recombinant DNA technology will also help to dissect the apparent complexity of many of the major agronomic physiological characteristics so fundamental to successful plant production. We may thus be able to provide substantial yield increases in even the most well developed crop species.
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© 1986 Dr. S. Bernhard, Dahlem Konferenzen, Berlin
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Peacock, W.J., Dennis, E.S. (1986). Plant Gene Engineering and Plant Agriculture. In: Silver, S. (eds) Biotechnology: Potentials and Limitations. Dahlem Workshop Reports, vol 35. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70535-9_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70535-9_17
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