Breeding Plantation Tree Crops: Tropical Species
Tree species, spread across a wide range of genera, are indispensible to human life. Their breeding, poised to satisfy human needs, presents significant challenges. Tree crops face a variety of agronomic and horticultural problems in propagation, yield, a
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Breeding Plantation Tree Crops: Tropical Species
S. Mohan Jain P. M. Priyadarshan Editors
Editors S. Mohan Jain Helsinki University Helsinki Finland [email protected]
ISBN: 978-0-387-71199-7
P. M. Priyadarshan Rubber Research Institute of India Agartala India [email protected]
e-ISBN: 978-0-387-71201-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008936881 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.
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Preface
Tree species are indispensable to support human life. Due to their long life cycle and environmental sensitivity, breeding trees to suit day-to-day human needs is a formidable challenge. Whether they are edible or industrial crops, improving yield under optimal, sub-optimal and marginal areas calls for unified efforts from the scientists around the world. While the uniqueness of coconut as kalpavriksha (Sanskritmeaning tree-of-life) marks its presence in every continent from Far East to South America, tree crops like cocoa, oil palm, rubber, apple, peach, grapes and walnut prove their environmental sensitivity towards tropical, sub-tropical and temperate climates. Desert climate is quintessential for date palm. Thus, from soft drinks to breweries to beverages to oil to tyres, the value addition offers a spectrum of products to human kind, enriched with nutritional, environmental, financial, social and trade related attributes. Taxonomically, tree crops do not confine to a few families, but spread across a section of genera, an attribute so unique that contributes immensely to genetic biodiversity even while cultivated at the commercial scale. Many of these species influence other flora to nurture in their vicinity, thus ensuring their integrity in preserving the genetic biodiversity. While wheat, rice, maize, barley, soybean, cassava and banana makeup the major food staples, many fruit tree species contribute greatly to nutritional enrichment in human diet. The edible part of these species is the source of several nutrients that makes additives for the daily diet of humans, for example, vitamins, sugars, aromas and flavour compounds, and raw material for food processing industries. Tree crops face an array of agronomic and horticultural problems in propagation, yield, appearance, quality, diseases and pest control, abiotic stresses and poor she
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