Tag : improvement

New Delhi: Advocating genome editing, some scientists have said the target traits should be for genetic improvement of rice, wheat, pulses, oil seeds and even sugarcane to address the issues of climate adaptation of crops, optimisation of shrinking natural resources, and combating malnutrition. Advertisement For instance, genome editing of rice can be done for water use efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency, abiotic stress tolerance, grain quality and productivity or, for that matter, green gram in pulses can be genome edited for drought and heat tolerance. The scientists have also said it is desired that emphasis will be given more to pulses and oilseed crops for raising productivity levels, improving nutritional quality and developing new varieties resistant to heat and drought stresses, pests [https://ipmcare.com/] and pathogens, to help reduce India's dependency on imports. Genome editing allows modifications in an organism's native DNA at a pre-determined genomic locus in a precise and targeted manner. In many countries, genome-edited crops are treated as non-GMOs because of the absence of foreign DNA in the final product, i.e., the improved crop variety is foreign DNA-free. The Centre recently exempted the SDN1 and SDN2 categories of genome edited crops from bio-safety assessment under the relevant rules of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Scientists K.C. Bansal from the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Viswanathan Chinnusamy from Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR) and Kutubuddin A. Molla from ICAR National Rice Research Institute in their paper 'Genome editing: a boon for plant biologists, breeders and farmers' published on July 10 in Current Science said this is a real boon for Indian plant biolo ...