Applied Biotechnology and Plant Genetics

Plant genetics and biotechnology represent the frontiers of modern agricultural and biological sciences, having given us the green revolution and the oilseeds yellow revolution. The new science, this gene revolution, produced the high-yielding wheat, rice, maize and barley seeds that brought about a revolutionary change in the worlds food supplies, from a state of perennial shortages to abundance and even surplus. Plant genetics is different from that of animals in a few ways. Like mitochondria, chloroplasts have their own DNA, complicating pedigrees somewhat.