Initial sugarcane production in South Africa relied on imported varieties. When imported varieties succumbed to diseases, the industry established the South African Research Institute (SASRI) with the mandate to develop sugarcane varieties. The popular and highly successful varieties, NCo310 and NCo376 were selected from crosses imported from India. NCo310 and NCo376 were grown successfully in ...

The whitefly Bemisia tabaci Genn. is a pervasive pest and vector of plant viruses. The existence of B. tabaci biotypes and numerous whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses (begomoviruses) affecting food and industrial crops, has become a major constraint to agricultural development in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The predominant whitefly and begomovirus method of control has been t...

The last century has witnessed a substantial improvement in yield potential, quality and disease resistance in crops. This was indeed the outcome of conventional breeding, which was achieved with little or no knowledge of underlying physiological and biochemical phenomena related to a trait. Also the resources utilized on programs involving conventional breeding were not of great magnitude. Pla...

As one of the three most important cereal species, maize is grown in a range of environments, and is a basic food grain in many areas and several cultures. This paper examines water use efficiency (WUE) in maize through a review of literatures on the topic. It then examines strategies to improve WUE, through plant breeding, biotechnology and changes to agronomic practice. In breeding for improv...

There is currently a lack of regulatory clarity in the European Union (EU), as well as in other countries, for the application of genome editing in plant breeding. We argue that the development and application of genome editing may eventually bridge the regulatory discrepancy between the relatively unregulated so called conventional breeding techniques and the overregulated transgenic technique...

the main objective of this study was to investigate the economic efficiency of investment in sugar beet breeding research in iran. the required information including the value and cost of sugar beet production in 2010 and the budget allocated to the sugar beet breeding research were obtained from the office of statistics and information technology of ministry of jihad-e-agriculture and agricult...