NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM INAUGURAL ADDRESS
Nov-9,11-2006

Prof. S. Kannaiyan - Chairman NBA

Fortunately, in plants the totipotency of somatic cells has been known since the late sixties. This property, coupled with the discovery of molecular mechanisms of grown gall disease, in which a bacterium introduces a part of its DNA into the plant somatic cells, has led to the development of techniques for the introduction of foreign DNA into most of the crop plants. Genes and genetic information can be mobilized from one to other organism, thus widening the scope of genetic exchange far beyond what sexual reproduction generally allows. This is the essence of transgenic technologies. India is one of the top 12 mega diversity countries and one of the 12 mega gene centres of the world. The country is rich in plant resources and its richness of plant biodiversity can be realized from the fact that about 10.5 per cent of species occur on only 2.4 per cent land area of the world. India ranks 10th among the major plant rich countries of the world. India is also highly rich in biodiversity of variety of wild mushrooms in different states of India. However most of the wild mushrooms are still unidentified. They are available in abundance during favourable climatic conditions. Awareness is therefore required to identify, characterize and explore the production potential of this wild flora which is unique to its occurrence in the respective geographical regions in different states of the country. Particularly in the case of the mushrooms, systematic efforts are required to conserve this abundant mushroom flora under in vivo and in vitro conditions before they are lost due to deforestation and environmental degradation. The present symposium is, therefore, very timely to think about these aspects not only in the case of crop biodiversity but also in the case of wild mushroom flora.

Thus the use of biodiversity in crop plants and in the case of edible mushrooms could be properly utilized in development of transgenic technologies which therefore, could be seen as greater opportunities to enhance crop productivity and edible mushroom production concomitantly ensuring the sustainability of agriculture in eco-friendly manner. Transgenics have been mainly deployed in soybean, maize, cotton and rapeseed canola particularly in the USA, Canada, Argentina and Brazil. A lot more has yet to be done in other crops and new efforts need to be initiated in the case of improvement in quantitative and quality production of edible mushrooms. It is seen from the presently available literature that while in laboratories, large number of transgenics have been developed, very few are in the field. Only two traits i.e. herbicide resistance and insect resistance have been deployed extensively. The global area under these transgenics crops has steadily increased in both developed and developing countries. The USA, Canada, Argentina and Brazil account for 82.4% of the total of 90 million hectare area under transgenics in comparison to very meager in other parts of the world. The approval given by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, Govt of India in March 2002 for the commercial release of Bt cotton sets the stage for the cultivation of genetically engineered crops in India. This sets a high demand for scientifically strong and cost-effective transformation technologies in Indian crops. The scientific expertise that many Indian laboratories have been developing over the years in genetic engineering must now be converted into 'technologies' so that many problems faced by Indian farmers can be solved by plant genetic engineering approaches. It is felt that many novel products will become available for commercialization in the near future.

A large number field and horticultural crops are affected from major pests and pathogens for which sources of resistance in the primary gene pool (available biodiversity among crop varieties) are not available for incorporation of resistance in the desirable crop cultivars.