Shrinking arable land due to soil salinization and, depleting fresh water resources pose serious worldwide constraints to crop productivity. A vision of using plant feedstock for biofuel production can only be realized if we can identify alternate species that can be grown on saline soils and therefore, would not compete for the resources required for conventional agriculture. Halophytes have r...

G engineering can improve crop quality and agronomic performance. Biotech crops produced by this technology can potentially benefit producers as well as consumers in both developed and developing countries. The creation of the first genetically engineered (GE) organisms in the 1970s initiated a still ongoing debate regarding their safety. Despite this concern, GE crops have been increasingly ad...

Wherever humans have lived, they have made berries a part of their diet. Most of these have never been developed beyond local markets but some have become economically important crops. In this paper, the berry crops have been divided into four groups based on their current international popularity and potential future value. An overview of the status of development, current production, and futu...

This paper is intended to convey the message of the talk I gave at the Theo Murphy meeting at the Kavli Centre in July 2010. It, like the talk, is polemical, and conveys the exasperation felt by a practitioner of genetically modified (GM) plant science at its widespread misrepresentation. I argue that sustainable intensification of agriculture, using GM as well as other technologies, reduces it...

Transgenic Crops describes the basics of genetic modifi cation for agricultural purposes and a brief history of the technology and the governing policies surrounding it. This publication offers a brief overview of the main agricultural crops that have been genetically modifi ed, the characteristics they express, and the market roles they play. Unintended consequences, economic considerations, a...

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crops, genetically modified to express insecticidal toxins that target key pests of corn, cotton, rice, potato, and other crops, have been rapidly adopted and have become dominant fixtures in agroecosystems throughout the world. Due to the constitutive nature of Bt toxin expression, insecticidal proteins may be found in nearly all plant tissues, presenting multiple s...

background: aflatoxins are fungal toxins which may be present in some foods and due to their negative health effects, represent a major concern for humans and food industries. in the present study, total aflatoxin contamination in products from eight feed materials production centers located in qom city of iran were evaluated by an elisa technique in november 2012. methods: a total of 40 feed s...