ABSTRACT
Plants are the key to life on earth as they directly supply 90% of human calorie intake, and 80% of the protein intake, the remainder being derived from animal products, although these animals have also derived their nutrition from plants. A number of methodologies have come that would seem to have much more to offer in terms of advancing current research in the plant sciences, and exploiting the knowledge gained to develop new crops. The first of these areas is concerned with manipulation and subsequent growth of cells, tissues, organs and naked plant cells in tissue culture. The second field is genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology which has grown out very fast from the work initially carried out on microorganisms. These two areas of research have in recent years become associated with the general field of biotechnology and are potentially applicable to a wide variety of plant species, as well as offer a precision in manipulating genetic material.
