Tag: plant breeding for food production

Chlorella is a type of algae that grows in fresh water. The whole plant is used to make nutritional supplements and medicine. It is processed and made into tablets and liquid extracts. These extracts contain "chlorella growth factor," which is described as a water-soluble extract of chlorella containing chemicals including amino acids, peptides, proteins, vitamins, sugars, and nucleic acids. As a medicine, chlorella is used for preventing cancer, reducing radiation treatment side effects, stimulating the immune system, improving response to flu vaccine, increasing white blood cell counts (especially in people with HIV infection or cancer), preventing colds, protecting the body against toxic metals such as lead and mercury, and slowing the aging process.
Chlorella is also used to increase good bacteria in the intestine in order to improve digestion; and to help treat ulcers, colitis, Crohn's disease, and diverticulosis.
Some people also use chlorella for the prevention of stress-related ulcers; treatment of constipation, bad breath, and hypertension; as an antioxidant; to reduce cholesterol; to increase energy; to detoxify the body; and as a source of magnesium to promote mental health, relieve premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and reduce asthma attacks. It is also used for fibromyalgia.
Chlorella is applied to the skin for treating skin ulcers, rashes caused by radiation treatment, and a sexually transmitted disease called trichomoniasis. Chlorella is a good source of protein, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, chlorophyll, vitamins, and minerals. The cell wall of chlorella must be broken down before people can digest it.

The agriculture sector of India employs about 70 percent of the population, in which 80% are rural population. The agriculture share in the GDP of India is 20.5 %.

Horticulture has been defined as the agriculture of plants, mainly for food, materials, comfort and beauty. According to American horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey, "Horticulture is the growing of flowers, fruits and vegetables, and of plants for ornament and fancy." Hence, vegetable crop cultivation is known as Horticulture.

Wide hybridization can be used to transfer the desirable variability. It is used for producing haploids, diploids from tetraploids and trihaploids from hexaploids.

A. G.J Mendal is known for his discovery of fundamental laws of inheritance.

Totipotency - The ability of cells such as an embryonic stem cell to differentiate into any type of body cell. Plant cells are also totipotent, which helps to explain why a graft of a plant can generate a whole new individual out of just a small branch cutting.
Totipotent cells can form all the cell types in a body, plus the extraembryonic, or placental, cells. Embryonic cells within the first couple of cell divisions after fertilization are the only cells that are totipotent. Pluripotent cells can give rise to all of the cell types that make up the body; embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent. Multipotent cells can develop into more than one cell type, but are more limited than pluripotent cells; adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells are considered multipotent.

The Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b dwarfing genes were derived from Norin-10, which was a semi-dwarf variety bred in Japan and released in 1935 (Gale and Youssefian, 1985). Norin-10 was used in US breeding programs in the 1950s in order to improve lodging resistance in winter wheat, in which lodging was a serious problem when high rates of nitrogen fertilizers were applied. A selection from a cross of Norin-10 with the US variety, Brevor was particularly promising and was used by Borlaug in the development of the green revolution wheat varieties. Wheat Norin-10 is a semi-dwarf wheat cultivar with very large ears that was bred at an experimental station in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Norin-10 helped developing countries, such as India and Pakistan, to increase the productivity of their crops from approximately 60% during the green revolution. Thus, the correct answer is option B.

A crescograph is a device for measuring growth in plants. It was invented in the early 20th century by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. The Bose crescograph uses a series of clockwork gears and a smoked glass plate to record the movement of the tip of a plant (or its roots) at magnifications of up to 10,000. Marks are made on the plate at intervals of a few seconds, demonstrating how the rate of growth varies under varying stimuli. Bose experimented with temperature, chemicals, gases and electricity.