Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Farming and Biotechnology

For thousands of years, farmers have bred crops and animals to produce better outcomes in terms of crop yields, pest or drought resistance, speed of ripening, or growth rate. Now they are doing it with the aid of biotechnology by using genetically modified organisms to produce their desired results (Maynard, 2000). For instance: a stalk of corn that breeds pest-resistant corn, a potato that becomes resistant to the protein beetle, a strawberry that can withstand frost, and a soybean whose DNA is spliced with that of a petunia to produce a plant engineered to survive otherwise toxic doses of herbicide, are all products of genetically modified plants.

Traditional crossbreeding in plants requires the mixing of thousands of genes in the hopes of developing a plant with the desired trait. With biotechnology, characteristics can be individually selected and added to a seed. This is having a profound effect on agriculture because it can make a crop more resistant to pests, herbicides, or disease; make a plant produce more of a nutrient such as a protein or a vitamin; and increase crop yield (Maynard, 2000).

By altering the genetic code of the Coffee arabica plant, scientists may soon be able to switch off the gene coding for caffeine, and thus remove it from the coffee before it ever grows (Curry, 2000). They hope to be able to do the same with tea. Currently, decaffeinated beverages are made by a solvent extraction process which also removes flavor and taste from the beans. Caffeine itself is not related in any way to flavor, so making the genetically altered plants will allow growers to produce caffeine-free coffee and tea with all the natural flavor preserved.

Animal-plant genetic crossovers are also proving useful. Taking a gene from the flounder, which thrives in icy ocean waters, and putting it into a plant, scientists have developed a tomato that resists freezing (Gower, 2000). A gene from a rat, when added to ...

Page 1 of 8 Next >

More on Farming and Biotechnology...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Farming and Biotechnology. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 17:18, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688455.html