Author
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Hammerschlag, Freddi |
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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 2/28/1997 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: In this age of biotechnology, a broad array of technologies are available to help agricultural scientists meet the most urgent problems of our time. One major problem is that great preharvest and postharvest losses are being sustained in many of the countries of the world. In the past, genetic modification to reduce pathogen and pest losses came about through conventional breeding approaches. In the last two decades, scientists have developed techniques that enable them to perform genetic manipulations at the cellular and molecular levels. This presentation focuses on research conducted in the USDA/ARS Beltsville Agricultural Research Center on the application of plant tissue culture and gene transfer techniques to the improvement of peach and apple trees and will be of use to scientists interested in alternative methods of introducing useful traits into other woody crop species. Peach trees with increased levels of resistance to bacterial spot have been generated by tissue culture techniques and stability of spot resistance under field conditions has been demonstrated. A similar approach has generated peach plants with bacterial canker resistance and increased levels of resistance to root-knot nematode. Gene transfer techniques have generated peach trees with a compact growth habit and studies are in progress to evaluate transgenic apple plants, containing an introduced gene for the bacteriocidal peptide cecropin, for resistance to fireblight. |
