ABSTRACT
238The flowers and ornamental plants are grown for decoration, rather than food or raw materials, which comprises wide array of plants and are classified into several groups like cut flowers, ornamental grasses, lawn or turf grasses, potted and indoor plants, bedding plants, trees and shrubs, etc. The biotechnology has made tremendous impact both scientifically and economically in ornamental plants. It comprises a continuum of technologies, ranging from traditional biotechnology such as plant tissue culture to modern tools such as genetic engineering of plants. The key areas in which plant cell and tissue culture has direct application in ornamental horticulture are large-scale propagation of elite clones from a hybrid or specific parent lines, production of disease-free propagules etc. Genetic modification has been used for the development of varieties of numerous species. Molecular markers random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), simple tandem repeats (STR), simple sequence repeats (SSR), sequence-tagged sites (STS), expressed tagged sites (ETS), etc. are used for the selection of commercially important characteristics such as length of the juvenile phase, chilling response, disease resistance, flower number of plant size. Genetic engineering is also applied to increase the vase life of flowers, by blocking the ethylene production of flowers. Ethylene triggers flower deterioration. The biochemical pathway of ethylene biosynthesis is well characterized and the crucial genes encoding 1-aminocyclopropane-l-carboxylate synthetase and 1-amninocyclo propane 1-carboxylate oxidase have been successfully sequenced.
