One of the goals of plant science is to improve agricultural sustainability, increasing yield, food diversity, and nutrition, while minimizing the negative impact on our environment. In response to internal and external cues, plant hormones control various aspects of plant growth and development. The wealth of our knowledge on plant hormones shall greatly advance sustainable agriculture.

Senescence and Aging in Plants reviews the state of knowledge in the processes involved in plant senescence and aging. The book begins by discussing the emergence of senescence as a concept; experimental analysis of senescence; and patterns of senescence. It then examines membrane deterioration during senescence; photosynthesis in relation to leaf senescence; senescence of detached plant organs; changing patterns of nucleic acid and protein synthesis during senescence; and degradative and associated assimilatory aspects of nitrogen removal. This is followed by chapters on aspects of ethylene that may impinge upon its role in promoting senescence of higher plants; the role of cytokinins in plant senescence; the promoters and retardants of senescence; and the role of calcium in plant senescence. The concept of whole plant senescence is discussed, which can be subdivided into patterns, correlative controls, cessation of vegetative growth, declining assimilatory processes, assimilate partitioning, and hormonal controls. The final chapters cover the deterioration of cellular membranes during the plant aging process and seed aging.

Assists policymakers in evaluating the appropriate scientific methods for detecting unintended changes in food and assessing the potential for adverse health effects from genetically modified products. In this book, the committee recommended that greater scrutiny should be given to foods containing new compounds or unusual amounts of naturally occurring substances, regardless of the method used to create them. The book offers a framework to guide federal agencies in selecting the route of safety assessment. It identifies and recommends several pre- and post-market approaches to guide the assessment of unintended compositional changes that could result from genetically modified foods and research avenues to fill the knowledge gaps.

Non-staple crops (sometimes known as underutilized, semidomesticated, orphan and/or forgotten crops) usually refer to under-researched grain and legume compared to staple crops, such as sweetpotato, buckwheat, millet, barley, pea, mung beans, and adzuki beans, which contain unique and beneficial nutrients that staple crops do not have. Combining them with staple foods is an important guarantee for a nutrition-balanced diet. With the deepening of research, the current research on non-staple crops has gradually started to create a wide range of materials, identify varieties and quality, improve yield, respond to environmental conditions and regulate growth and development. Therefore, it is an important research objective to improve the important agronomic traits of non-staple crops, including anthocyanins in sweetpotato, rutin in buckwheat, vitamins in millet, β-glucan in barley, etc. through both cultivation and molecular breeding methods and to create new germplasm resources with high yield and abundant nutrients. Recently, notable successes have been made using genomic-related approaches to uncover the genes responsible for important phenotypes in non-staple crops. The genetic basis of metabolomic divergence and domestication has been revealed in buckwheat, and the QTLs for controlling agronomic traits such as flesh color of sweetpotato have been obtained, however the function of related genes still needs further investigation. In addition, biotic and abiotic stresses in extreme climatic conditions change the yield and quality of crops by affecting the growth and development of crops and important metabolic regulation processes. Non-staple crops are often climate-resilient and grown in marginal regions with low-input conditions, including examples for tolerance of drought stress in cowpea and buckwheat, tolerance of heat in cassava and tolerance of barren in sweetpotato. Investigating the mechanism of their environmental adaptability would provide new insights for breeding of not only non-staple crops but also staple crops that are limited in the tolerance of a changing climate to ensure future food security. It is of great theoretical significance and practical application value to study the molecular regulatory network of non-staple crops under these stress conditions. • Using cultivation measures, plant growth regulators, fertilizers, and other methods to improve the environmental stress resistance and important agronomic traits in non-staple crops. • Revealing molecular mechanisms and regulatory network under all kinds of environmental stresses in non-major crops and improving stress tolerance through genetic engineering. • Identifying key regulatory genes of important agronomic traits in non- staple crops and improving molecular breeding methods.

Plant hormones play a crucial role in controlling the way in which plants grow and develop. While metabolism provides the power and building blocks for plant life, it is the hormones that regulate the speed of growth of the individual parts and integrate them to produce the form that we recognize as a plant. This book is a description of these natural chemicals: how they are synthesized and metabolized, how they act at both the organismal and molecular levels, how we measure them, a description of some of the roles they play in regulating plant growth and development, and the prospects for the genetic engineering of hormone levels or responses in crop plants. This is an updated revision of the third edition of the highly acclaimed text. Thirty-three chapters, including two totally new chapters plus four chapter updates, written by a group of fifty-five international experts, provide the latest information on Plant Hormones, particularly with reference to such new topics as signal transduction, brassinosteroids, responses to disease, and expansins. The book is not a conference proceedings but a selected collection of carefully integrated and illustrated reviews describing our knowledge of plant hormones and the experimental work that is the foundation of this information. The Revised 3rd Edition adds important information that has emerged since the original publication of the 3rd edition. This includes information on the receptors for auxin, gibberellin, abscisic acid and jasmonates, in addition to new chapters on strigolactones, the branching hormones, and florigen, the flowering hormone.

Advancement in Crop Improvement Techniques presents updates on biotechnology and molecular biological approaches which have contributed significantly to crop improvement. The book discusses the emerging importance of bioinformatics in analyzing the vast resources of information regarding crop improvement and its practical application and utilization. Throughout this comprehensive resource, emphasis is placed on various techniques used to improve agricultural crops, providing a common platform for the utility of these techniques and their combinations. Written by an international team of contributors, this book provides an in-depth analysis of existing tools and a framework for new research. - Reviews techniques used for crop improvement, from selection and crossing over, to microorganismal approaches - Explores the role of conventional biotechnology in crop improvement - Summarizes the combined approaches of cytogenetics and biotechnology for crop improvement, including the importance of molecular techniques in this process - Focuses on the emerging role of bioinformatics for crop improvement

Genetically engineered (GE) crops were first introduced commercially in the 1990s. After two decades of production, some groups and individuals remain critical of the technology based on their concerns about possible adverse effects on human health, the environment, and ethical considerations. At the same time, others are concerned that the technology is not reaching its potential to improve human health and the environment because of stringent regulations and reduced public funding to develop products offering more benefits to society. While the debate about these and other questions related to the genetic engineering techniques of the first 20 years goes on, emerging genetic-engineering technologies are adding new complexities to the conversation. Genetically Engineered Crops builds on previous related Academies reports published between 1987 and 2010 by undertaking a retrospective examination of the purported positive and adverse effects of GE crops and to anticipate what emerging genetic-engineering technologies hold for the future. This report indicates where there are uncertainties about the economic, agronomic, health, safety, or other impacts of GE crops and food, and makes recommendations to fill gaps in safety assessments, increase regulatory clarity, and improve innovations in and access to GE technology.