ABSTRACT
Agricultural sustainability is supported by the three interlocking pillars of profit, planet, and people. Mitigation and adaptation to climate change effects is essentially environmental sustainability. The oil palm is a net sequester of carbon except when replanting forest and peat land and during forest fires. The goal of any transgenic crop modification is to use recombinant DNA methods to alter gene expression in order to create new varieties for breeders that may be difficult or impossible to produce using conventional approaches. Crop models allow one to test the effects of a range of desired prospective traits proposed to be incorporated into the new oil palm lines. This chapter provides an overview of common crop phenotyping techniques that may be useful for nonexpert. Microbial services may include production of plant growth regulators or phytohormones, provision of nutrients, enhanced tolerance to abiotic stresses, alteration of plant functional traits and induction of plant innate immune responses, and perhaps other mechanisms as well.
