Rediscovery of Landraces as a Resource for the Future
Rediscovery of Landraces as a Resource for the Future

Author: Oscar Grillo

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2018-09-12

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1789237246

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In recent years, all over the world, the attention paid to local and traditional productions is growing, especially in the agro-food sector. Maybe, it is not only due to the impact of globalization and the social and economic changes but also due to the increased consideration to health and nutritional aspects of food. Hence, for economic, social, historical, and nutritional reasons, this trend has led to the rediscovery and reuse of landraces of many different crops, responding to requests for more and more demanding market. This volume collects examples of local crops and old landraces of different areas of the planet that testify the extreme importance of the relation existing among a land, the local productions, the historical traditions, the conservation of biodiversity, the health benefits, the environmental impact and the local economies, also including the significance to dedicate resources to scientific researches in local crops.

Rediscovery of Genetic and Genomic Resources for Future Food Security
Rediscovery of Genetic and Genomic Resources for Future Food Security

Author: Romesh Kumar Salgotra

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-01-28

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9811501564

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This book describes how the latest genomic resources techniques can be efficiently used in plant breeding programmes to achieve food security in the future. It also shares insights on how to utilize the untapped and unexplored genetic diversity of wild species, wild relatives and landraces for crop improvement. Moreover, the book offers an impressive array of balanced analyses, fresh ideas and perspectives, and thoughtful and realistic proposals regarding the sustainable utilization of plant genetic resources with modern biotechnological techniques. The first book to address the importance of plant genetics and genomic resources for food security, it brings together a group of plant breeders and biotechnologists to investigate the use of genomic resources techniques in plant breeding programmes. Providing essential information on the efficient utilization of genomic resources in precision breeding, it offers a valuable asset for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers and professionals engaged in related fields.

Wheat Landraces
Wheat Landraces

Author: Nusret Zencirci

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-09-15

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 3030773884

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Landraces possess a very large genetic base in population structure and are dynamic populations of cultivated plants with historical origin, distinct identity, and without any formal crop improvement. They are often genetically diverse, locally adapted, and associated with traditional farming systems. Resistance genes to biotic and abiotic stress factors, which are especially diversified in landraces, are of great interest to plant breeders, faced with global climate challenge. In addition, gene pools made of different landraces grown in different ecological conditions can be used for wheat breeding to enhance quality; yield and other desirable agricultural parameters. An estimated 75% of the genetic diversity of crop plants was lost in the last century due to the replacement of high yielding modern varieties. There is, thus, an urgent need to preserve existing species, not only for posterity but also as a means to secure food supply for a rising world population. In this book, we provide an overview of wheat landraces with special attention to genetic diversities, conservation, and utilization.

Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Bioresources
Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Bioresources

Author: Swapna Thacheril Sukumaran

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-01-05

Total Pages: 664

ISBN-13: 9811958416

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This book brings together chapters related to sustainable utilization of biological resources, including in situ and ex situ conservation of rare, endangered, and threatened plants. The title also gives a special emphasis on marine sponges and mangrove ecosystems, which are two important untapped potential resources of the marine ecosystem and play a key role in maintaining the marine ecosystem. There is an urgent need for the conservation, exploration and utilization of bioresources for the growth and survival of human beings. Due to the significant reduction in biological resources, many countries are developing strategic action plans for the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources. That is where this book fills the gap by discussing the significant development of new products and methodologies for sustainable utilization of these resources. This book also unveils a world of novel bioactive molecules from medicinal plants and the marine ecosystem and explains how drug design pipelines can advance modern drug development. The target audiences for this book include biodiversity researchers who are working on technology and bioresource management issues and faculty and students in the environment research areas and Biodiversity conservation.

Sustainable Agriculture in the Era of Climate Change
Sustainable Agriculture in the Era of Climate Change

Author: Rajib Roychowdhury

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-07-06

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 3030456692

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Under ongoing climate changes, natural and cultivated habitats of major crops are being continuously disturbed. Such conditions impose and exacerbate abiotic and biotic stressors. Drought, salinity, flood, cold, heat, heavy metals, metalloids, oxidants, irradiation, etc. are important abiotic stressors, while diseases and infections caused by plant pathogens, such as fungal agents, bacteria and viruses, are major biotic stresses. In many instances, stresses have become the major limiting factor for agricultural productivity and exert detrimental role on growth and yield of the crops. To help feed an ever increasing world population and to ensure global food security, concerted efforts from scientists and researchers have identified strategies to manage and mitigate the impacts of climate-induced stresses. This book, summarizing their findings, is aimed at crop improvement beyond such kind of barriers, by agronomic practices (genetics, breeding, phenotyping, etc.) and biotechnological applications, including molecular markers, QTL mapping, genetic engineering, transgenesis, tissue culture, various 'omics' technologies and gene editing. It will cover a wide range of topics under environmental challenges, agronomy and agriculture processes, and biotechnological approaches. Additionally, fundamental mechanisms and applied information on stress responses and tolerance will be discussed. This book highlights problems and offers proper solutions for crop stress management with recent information and up-to-date citations. We believe this book is suitable for scientists, researchers and students working in the fields of agriculture, plant science, environmental biology and biotechnology.

Soybean Improvement
Soybean Improvement

Author: Shabir Hussain Wani

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-10-17

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 3031122321

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Soybean (Glycine max L. (Merr)) is one of the most important crops worldwide. Soybean seeds are vital for both protein meal and vegetable oil. Soybean was domesticated in China, and since last 4-5 decades it has become one of the most widely grown crops around the globe. The crop is grown on an anticipated 6% of the world’s arable land, and since the 1970s, the area in soybean production has the highest percentage increase compared to any other major crop. It is a major crop in the United States, Brazil, China and Argentina and important in many other countries. The cultivated soybean has one wild annual relative, G. soja, and 23 wild perennial relatives. Soybean has spread to many Asian countries two to three thousand years ago, but was not known in the West until the 18th century. Among the various constraints responsible for decrease in soybean yields are the biotic and abiotic stresses which have recently increased as a result of changing climatic scenarios at global level. A lot of work has been done for cultivar development and germplasm enhancement through conventional plant breeding. This has resulted in development of numerous high yielding and climate resilient soybean varieties. Despite of this development, plant breeding is long-term by nature, resource dependent and climate dependent. Due to the advancement in genomics and phenomics, significant insights have been gained in the identification of genes for yield improvement, tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress and increased quality parameters in soybean. Molecular breeding has become routine and with the advent of next generation sequencing technologies resulting in SNP based molecular markers, soybean improvement has taken a new dimension and resulted in mapping of genes for various traits that include disease resistance, insect resistance, high oil content and improved yield. This book includes chapters from renowned potential soybean scientists to discuss the latest updates on soybean molecular and genetic perspectives to elucidate the complex mechanisms to develop biotic and abiotic stress resilience in soybean. Recent studies on the improvement of oil quality and yield in soybean have also been incorporated.

Phosphorus
Phosphorus

Author: Jim Elser

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0199916926

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Phosphorus is essential to the production of our food, and it also triggers algal blooms in lakes, rivers, and oceans when it slips through our hands. An understanding of this essential resource and how we have used and misused it over the years is crucial to the sustainability of our well-being on our planet. In this book, world authorities on phosphorus sustainability Jim Elser and Phil Haygarth explain this element's involvement in biology, human health and nutrition, food production, ecosystem function, and environmental sustainability. Phosphorus chronicles the sustainability challenges phosphorus both poses and solves in various contexts. The book begins with its discovery over 350 years ago, moving to its basic chemistry and the essential role it plays in all living things on Earth. Chapters go on to explain the rise in the usage of phosphorus in agriculture and how the increase in the mining of rock phosphate in the mid-20th century was essential for the Green Revolution. However, phosphorus emissions from human wastes and detergents triggered widespread algal blooms in the 1960s and 1970s. While such emissions have been brought under better control with wastewater treatment, diffuse emissions from farming continue to cause water quality degradation. The authors explain how these diffuse phosphorus emissions may worsen with climate change. In ten concise chapters, Elser and Haygarth offer engaging explanations of our historical use and abuse of phosphorus, including the phosphorus sustainability movement and new efforts to sustain food benefits of limited rock reserves following the phosphate rock price shock in 2007-2008. Highlighting new approaches for phosphorus, the two "Systems Innovators" turn toward the emerging set of sustainable phosphorus solutions necessary to achieve a sustainable "phosphoheaven" and avoid "phosphogeddon." The book provides an insider's take on this essential resource and why all of us need to wrestle with the wicked problems this element will cause, illuminate, or eliminate in years to come.