Advances in Plant Ethylene Research

This volume is dedicated to cultivation of grain crops, it has been rightly recognized as one of the main drivers in shaping human civilizations.

The demand for plant foods in all global markets has been increasing along with awareness of greenhouse gases generated from animal farming, expanded sentiments against animal slaughtering and common perception of the health benefits of plant food products. Accordingly, more attention has been placed on green processing of plant foods for the optimization of their nutritional and health benefits. Sprouted vegetable products have been studied and reported in many scientific investigations to qualitatively improve the phytochemistry, enhance the nutritional profile and improve the biological functionality potentials of such vegetables beyond their initial natural states. Vegetable sprouts have been reported to possess aspects that make them serviceable for the management of metabolic syndrome disorders such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and other health issues related to cellular oxidation of body cells, and antimicrobial bioactive components have been isolated from vegetable sprouts.

This book examines the development of innovative modern methodologies towards augmenting conventional plant breeding, in individual crops, for the production of new crop varieties under the increasingly limiting environmental and cultivation factors to achieve sustainable agricultural production, enhanced food security, in addition to providing raw materials for innovative industrial products and pharmaceuticals. This is Vol 6, subtitled Industrial and Food Crops, which consists of two parts.

This handbook covers the most commonly used techniques for measuring plant response to biotic and abiotic stressing factors, including: in vitro and in vivo bioassays; the study of root morphology, photosynthesis (pigment content, net photosynthesis, respiration, fluorescence and thermoluminiscence) and water status; thermal imaging; the measurement of oxidative stress markers; flow cytometry for measuring cell cycle and other physiological parameters; the use of microscope techniques for studying plant microtubules; programmed-cell-death; last-generation techniques (metabolomics, proteomics, SAR/QSAR); hybridization methods; isotope techniques for plant and soil studies; and the measurement of detoxification pathways, volatiles, soil microorganisms, and computational biology.

This book examines the development of innovative modern methodologies towards augmenting conventional plant breeding, in individual crops, for the production of new crop varieties under the increasingly limiting environmental and cultivation factors to achieve sustainable agricultural production, enhanced food security, in addition to providing raw materials for innovative industrial products and pharmaceuticals.