RECOMBINANT DNA AND AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Abstract

This chapter discusses recombinant DNA and agricultural research. The recombinant DNA is considered to make possible improvements in agriculture to (1) economically important micro-organisms, (2) farm livestock, and (3) crop plants. The proposal to release into the environment micro-organisms that have been modified by recombinant DNA technology is not unique to agriculture , but it is rare elsewhere. The engineering of micro-organisms that are components of the root-soil rhizosphere ecosystem could be of value if they can be established in the soil. The potentiality for agricultural advance by recombinant DNA technology has always seemed more likely with plants because of the capacity to regenerate an entire individual from a single cell or protoplast. Plant protoplasts are produced experimentally by the enzymatic degradation of cell walls. The protoplast can take up the viruses or plasmids in naked state. Recombinant DNA research offers the potentiality for the modification of crops in new ways, but it is not always easy to see what characters might be incorporated from alien sources.