Shri Mohan Jain – författare

Tree species are indispensable to human needs. Due to their long life cycle and environmental sensitivity, breeding trees for sustainable production is a formidable challenge in order to meet the demands of growing human population and industries. Fruit crops such as apple, cocoa, mango, citrus, litchi, pear, dates, and coconut or industrial crops including rubber and tea, improving yield under the optimal, sub-optimal and marginal areas call for a unified worldwide effort. While the uniqueness of coconut as ‘kalpavriksha’ (Sanskrit - meaning tree of life) makes its presence in every continent from Far East to South America, tree crops such as cocoa, oil palm, rubber, apple, peach and walnut prove their environmental sensitivity towards tropical, subtropical and temperate climates. Date palm is quintessential for desert climate. Thus, from soft drinks to breweries to oil to tires, the value addition offers a spectrum of products to human kind, enriched with nutritional, environmental, financial, and trade related attributes.

This volume is a compilation of information on breeding of temperate tree species and provides first hand comprehensive knowledge to research, teach, and make policies.

Plant stress caused by drought and salinity are among the major constraints on crop production and food security worldwide. Breeding programs to improve crop yield in dry and saline environments have progressed slowly due to our limited understanding of the underlying physiological, biochemical, developmental, and genetic mechanisms that determine plant responses to these forms of stress, as well as to technical difficulties in combining favourable alleles to create the improved high yielding genotypes needed for these environments.

"Advances in Molecular Breeding toward Drought and Salt Tolerant Crops" seeks to integrate the most recent findings about key biological determinants of plant stress tolerance with modern crop improvement strategies. This volume is unique because is provides exceptionally wide coverage of current knowledge and expertise being applied in drought and salt tolerance research, spanning the scientific hierarchy from physiology, biochemistry, development, and genetics, to the newest technologies being used to manipulate drought and salinity associated traits for germplasm improvement. This book will be an invaluable reference for educators and researchers in agronomy and horticulture, crop breeding, molecular genetics, and biotechnology.

Given the vital and far-reaching applications of medicinal plant metabolites worldwide, the quality and consistency of the products as well as the very survival of various species are of the utmost importance. In Protocols for In Vitro Cultures and Secondary Metabolite Analysis of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants, expert researchers provide detailed, step-by-step protocols for the establishment of in vitro cultures of key medicinal plants, their mass multiplication in a controlled environment, and step-wise secondary metabolite analysis, genetic transformation, large-scale metabolite production in a bioreactor, and molecular markers. In addition, many of these protocols will provide a basis for much needed efforts of in vitro germplasm conservation or cryopreservation of medicinal plant species at the brink of extinction as well as efforts to protect them from the adverse impact of rapid climatic changes. As a volume in the Methods in Molecular Biology™ series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

Comprehensive and authoritative, Protocols for In Vitro Cultures and Secondary Metabolite Analysis of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants is an ideal resource for scientists endeavoring to continue the research on this exciting natural branch of medicine.

Micropropagation is a reliable technology applied commercially worldwide for large-scale plant multiplication, germplasm conservation, pathogen elimination, genetic manipulations and supply of selected plants. In Protocols for Micropropagation of Selected Economically-Important Horticultural Plants, well recognised researchers in the field compile step-wise protocols for rapid plant multiplication of economically-important horticultural species. The book contains 35 chapters, divided into four major sections. The first three sections (Section A, B and C) contain 29 micropropagation protocols of selected fruit and nut species, indoor and outdoor ornamental plants, cut flowers, and vegetables. In addition to the detailed protocols of in vitro shoot initiation, proliferation, root induction and acclimatization, chapters also include detailed information on medium preparation, explant selection and preparation. The six chapters of Section D cover specific reviews on pivotal topics, such as in vitro rejuvenation, synthetic seed technology, thermotherapy and meristem culture in banana, genetic transformation of pineapple, flower color somaclonal variation in torenia, and cryotherapy of horticultural crops. Moreover, as a part of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to the respective topic, lists of necessary materials, notes, and illustrative photos.

Comprehensive and well-written, Protocols for Micropropagation of Selected Economically-Important Horticultural Plants offers a useful resource for horticulturists, researchers, commercial companies, plant propagators, biotechnologists and students interested in micropropagation.