Plant breeding – Plant en Zo

The origin of oranges

All trees in an orange orchard are genetically almost identical. This makes them more susceptible for diseases. Now a team of Chinese researchers show in Nature Genetics the origin of oranges, and that breeders can use this to breed resistant varieties.

Starting points

Starting points In the never ending battle between plant and herbivory insects researchers search for ways to make plants less attractive. Like Dutch researchers show, this starts with the analysis of how insects manages to dodge the plant defence systems. Herbivory insects excrete with their saliva proteins that slow down the plant defence reaction. JustContinue reading “Starting points”

Different ways of plant breeding

Different ways of plant breeding Last month the European Commission came with a new proposal regarding the genetic modification of crop plants. They propose crops breed using new genetic techniques not to classify as genetically modified. But which ways of plant breeding are there? Here I will highlight four of them. During breeding of cropsContinue reading “Different ways of plant breeding”