Understanding the Importance of Plant Genetics

The modern understanding of plant genetics has enabled science to keep producing higher yielding varieties stems back from the nineteenth century. Since then, scientists have systematically collected and stored seeds and living material from countless thousands of plants.

Male: The modern understanding of plant genetics that has enabled science to keep producing higher yielding varieties stems back to the work of Gregor Mendel a 19’th century Czech monk. Working with a humble P he first made discoveries about the way plants and other life forms past their characteristics from one generation to the next. Since then scientist have systematically collected and installed seeds and living material from countless thousands of plants. It was Nicholi Vavelov who discovered that there were exceptional scent as a plant diversity dotted across the phase of the planet. In the pre-war years Vavelop and his scientist scawored the world, building up the collection of land racist and their wild fore runner’s. Prof Jack Hawkes: They have found an enormous amount of variation with in the crops them selves far more than any one had realized existed before. And he also found a lot of wild relatives of the crops. So this starts him of in his quest for plant diversity. Male: The exceptional centres of diversity frequently highland and regions with in the tropics he called primary areas of origin. They now bear his name the Vavelov centres. Prof Jack Hawkes: First of all realized that there was such a lot of diversity amongst the crops and the centres of diversity which very often where the centres of origin and no one had realized out there to look for resistance for plant and diseases of these crops you have to go where these crops have evolved over the millennia with the plant diseases all the insect diseases and have it low sub and resistance to them. So that was the genius of the Velov he was enthusiastic about that he passed his enthusiasm to many other colleges and to youngsters like my self. Male: Vavelov stored the seed samples in metal boxes at his institute at Lemon grad it was to become a model for an international network of gene banks. On the institutes experimental farms specialist teams used the newly acquired seeding and breeding programs to improve staple Russian cereals as well as vegetables like cabbages, onions, and cucumbers. Dr. V A Dragavtsev: A land process it is native aboriginal varieties very ancient and Vavilov and co-worker very direful collected these varieties and now when we have new methods of breeding like gene engineering. The genes of land grasses begin in very important for increase of adoptivity for in reason of tolerance for increase of yield for increase of quality of the yields. Male: The Soviet Union under starling was no place for a scientist of Vavelov’s integrity during the war he was imprisoned and is believed to have died in jail. After Starling the world recognized the work of the great scientist and his acolytes in building in building the first gene bank. Land racist that might have been lost have now come down to us. In the 1960’s scenes from the Vavelov institute and dwarf varieties from Japan became the basic genetic ingredience for a new breed of supper crops. Under the leadership of Doctor Robert Borlauck scientist developed crops that will produce bumper harvest with the aid of chemical fertilizers. It seems that science can bring an end to world hunger. Dr. Norman Borlaug: Those varieties have to be collected in a right way they would only be marginally higher yielding under or not soils they had to have food which we call fertilizer to add em up in the right time, the right seeding rate. You had to get the weeds out and when all of those pieces went together and these young people who believed in them demonstrated this out on thousands of farms it caught on and it surprised every one we called it the green revolution. Male: Supported by the Rockefeller foundation the green revolution was enthusiastically t6acken off across Latin America and Asia. In the Punjab in northern India were fertilizer and the plentiful water supply for irrigation yields quadrupled. Emerjeet Singh Siddhu: We use the right test of chemicals previously farming that old cement that one task alone could take after day. Now with tractors a lot more work can be done in a very short time. Most task are finished in a day. There is also a change in the old varieties of the crops are not growing any longer. There is a preference for a new varieties as they yield more. Male: The heights in food production came with a price. A dependency in chemical inputs pesticides and fertilizers was created, and farmers became less tolerant for the apparent chaos of plant diversity in their fields preferring instead to cultivate fields with only standardized varieties. Before the green revolution Indian farmers harvested over 30 thousand varieties of rice, today over 3 quarters of the crop come just 10 varieties in the Punjab it is no longer possible to buy a single traditional variety of seed. There is no worrying evidence that the limits are being reached from some parts there is still more alarming use of declining production the challenge now is to find new way s to feed a growing world population by the year 2020 there will be over 2 billion extra mouths to feed. Prof. Gordon Conway: In addition to producing more food we’ve got to produce it in a sustainable fashion. We have to use the modern advances in molecular and cellular biology and then a particular genetic engineering to speed up the process of plant breeding to produce new varieties that will increase yields not only on the best lands but also on the marginal lands. So we need to repeat the successes of the green revolution but do even better.