Plant Biotechnology

Plant biotechnology can be defined as the application of knowledge which obtained from the study of life sciences that can be used to create technological improvements in plant species. The improvement of the technology in plant species can overcome some problems and also get more yields to increase the country’s economy. By this very broad definition, plant biotechnology has been conducted for more than ten thousand years.

Plant biotechnology was founded on the demonstrated totipotency of plant cells, combined with the delivery, stable integration, and expression of the transgenes in plant cells, the regeneration of transformed plants, and the Mendelian transmission of transgenes to the progeny. The concept of totipotency itself is inherent

For example, a crossing between Triticum aestivum which is wheat and Secale cereal which is rye. They will produce a novel grain termed as triticale which contains a copy of all chromosomes from both species. Triticale was considered little more than a botanical oddity when it was firstly produced in the 1870s. However, in the mid of 1900s, the plant breeders were realized that the triticale had the potential to develop into a crop with the yield and the quality of bread wheat and with rye’s tolerance of cold stress, moisture stress, and acidic soils. The early triticale was plagued with some problems. Those tall, late- maturing plants tended to fall over, were partially sterile, and also low yield. They are typically produced shriveled seeds that were germinated poorly and were poor quality for the milling and baking. But through continued artificial selection, these problems were overcome and the triticale is now grown worldwide on more than 1 million hectares of marginal farmland. [3]

Plant biotechnology has two meaning. In general sense, it is referring to innovations in the use of plants to make products of use to humans which is an endeavor that began in prehistory. In the other way, biotechnology is referring to the use of genetic modified organisms in the agriculture and industry. Indeed, in the last two decades, genetic engineering has become such a powerful

For example, traditional breeding techniques could not be inserted a desired gene from the daffodil into rice. This is because there are many intermediate species between the rice and the daffodil. Besides, the common ancestor of rice and daffodil are extinct. So, theoretically, if the breeders had the intermediate species which over the course of several centuries, they had the probability to introduce a daffodil gene into the rice by the traditional hybridization and breeding methods. However, this kind of gene transfer can be done by genetic engineering with more quickly, more specifically and also without the help for intermediate species. Nowadays, scientists have learned the techniques of transferring a gene from one organisms to another. This techniques are referring as the genetic engineering, genetic improvement or genetically modified. No matter of the name, this process is allowing the transfer of useful features such as the disease resistance to insert the gene which was transferred from other organisms to plant, animal or microorganisms. The transfer DNA which is commonly referred to as genetically modified crops or genetically modified organisms is improving almost all the crops that have been developed. This genetically modified organisms or genetically modified crops