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Sorghum is an important crop of semi-arid tropics. Ninety percent of the world's area cultivated to sorghum is in developing countries, mainly in the arid or semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia. Being highly adaptable to harsh condi-tions, it plays a major role by supplying staple food and fodder for millions of poor and marginal farmers. The genetic improvement of sorghum through clas-sical plant breeding has resulted in the successful development and deployment of highly adapted high-yielding cultivars that are stable across years. However, to further enhance productivity, quality and resistance to constraints such as drought, Striga, grain mold, and insect pests that are so common on the poor farmers' fields in the tropics, much more needs to be done. The resistance level available in cultivated sorghum types is not adequate to build durable resistance to some of the constraints, especially those caused by insect pests. Therefore, the emerging technologies of genetic engineering, such as genetic transformation, have attracted much attention for sorghum improvement, as they provide novel means to supplement the traditional breeding methods.
This book is a compendium of the updated research articles that were presented in the workshops and discussion groups at ICRISAT. This will be of immense use for the workers engaged in applied as well as basic research on improve-ment of sorghum and related crops.
Contents
Part 1 Introduction - overview on scope of transgenics and model systems: sorghum story - current status and prospects; genetic engineering of rice - a case study with reference to aspirations of a developing country; information and tools from "arabidopsis" for biotechnology of crop plants. Part 2 Tissue culture and genetic transformation of sorghum: optimizing sorghum transformation technology via somatic embryogenesis; development of sorghum transformation - organogenic regeneration and gene transfer methods; genetic transformation of postrainy season sorghum using particle bombardment; sorghum tissue culture and genetic transformation research at ICRISAT; generation of hygromycin resistant transgenic sorghum plants following microprojectile-mediated transformation of shoot meristem-derived calli; agrobacterium-mediated transformation of grain sorghum. Part 3 Examples of specific applications: biolistic transformation of sorghum with PR-protein genes and the influence of a transgenic chitinase gene of resistance to stalk-rot; production of transgenic sorghum plants with the barley dehydrative stress-related HVAI gene; nutritional quality improvement of sorghum through genetic transformation. Part 4 Transgene expression: enhancing transgene expression levels in sorghum - current status and future goals; isolation of a meristem-specific gene promoter from "sorghum bicolor" (L.) moench. Part 5 Genes for producing new transgenics: targeted approaches for grain mould resistance in sorghum; isolation of putative disease resistance genes from sorghum and other dryland crops. Part 6 Management of transgenics: role of transgenics in pest management in sorghum; prospects of delaying emergence of resistance in insects against insecticidal toxins of "bacillus thuringienses"; resistance management strategies for Bt rice. Part 7 Lab to land - deployment of transgenics in agriculture, especially in the developing countries: a case for integrating traditional breeding and transgenic research methods in sorghum improvement; considerations for adaptation of transgenic crops in developing countries.
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