Biotechnology in Agriculture

Bishnu Bhusal

Introduction

Biotechnology is a newly emerging field of science having tremendous benefit to mankind. The government of most developed countries and some developing countries have emphasized in biotechnological ventures due to its potential impact for economic development in future. In a country like Nepal having diversified agro-climatic conditions and with numerous agricultural and environmental problems, the role of genetic engineering and biotechnology for alleviating the quality of life of people can not be overlooked. The term biotechnology has attracted the attention of the people from many sectors in the recent years and has often been misinterpreted. According to Coleman (1986) ‘the term biotechnology means the application of scientific engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents to produce goods and services’. It includes the use of microbes, cells obtained from plant and animal excluding activities which involve whole plants or animals'.

In another word, 'biotechnology is the application of biological organism and molecules to technical and intestinal process (Prentiss, 1985)'.

Agriculture Biotechnology in Nepal

Biotechnology in the field of agriculture of Nepal is new andt we are more behind than the other developed country. In animal field biotechnical tools are limited in lab; organized farm and urban area to some extent. Recently some biotechnological practices like artificial insemination (AI), embryo transfer technology (ETT), invitro fertilization (IVF), pregnancy diagnosis (PD), fermentation, hormonal vaccine production, and animal tissue culture are being practiced mostly confined to lab and research center and AI in farmer’s level too.

In the field of plant improvement, biotechnology in Nepal is mostly limited to tissue culture activities that have been carried out in government sector as well as in private sectors. Beside tissue culture, some progress has been made on use of microorganism such as Rhizobia for biological nitrogen fixation, spawn of Agrotis and Pleutourus for commercial mushroom production. Since tissue culture technology is practiced more than other technology, a brief description of current status of plant tissue culture biotechnology is discussed here.

(a) Government Sectors

Among the Government sectors laboratories, tissue culture laboratories of 'Department of Plant Resources (DPR)' and 'Nepal Agriculture Research council (NARC)' are prominent. DPR running pilot project of producing 1, 00,000 invitro plantlets of disease-free banana and citrus for distribution. Similarly for last several years, potato research programme under NARC has been producing virus free seeds of potato in its tissue culture lab and green house. Similarly two other division of NARC namely soil and plant pathology division have been engaged in research and development on biological nitrogen fixation using various species of Rhizobium and spawn production and distribution for mushroom culture using two genera Agrotis and Pleurotus. Recently NARC has also established tissue culture laboratories at some agricultural research station at Dhankuta and Lumle. A tissue culture laboratory is also established in horticulture development project in Kirtipur. Decision of establishment of Gene bank in NARC, in near future is one of the positive aspect in biotechnology field of Nepal. Vaccine production against PPR using tissue culture has been going on at central veterinary lab (CVL) at Tripureswor. Application of AI techniques is being practiced since long time in grass root level too.

(b) Non Government Sector

Accompanied with government sector different non-government sector’s tissue culture laboratories has been established and some works are being carried out; some of the private sectors are as below

1) Botanical Enterprises Pvt. Ltd, Godawari

2) Nepal Biotechnology Nursery, Bhainsepati

3) Research Laboratory for Agriculture Biotechnology and Biodiversity (RLABB), Balkhu

4) Micro Plants, Kamal Pohkari.

5) Green Research and Technology (GREAT), Baneswor.

6) Himalayan Botanical Research Center (HIMBORCE), Baneswor

Biotechnology and Plant Field

Applications of biotechnology for the improvement of crop in different aspects are discussed below in brief.

1) Clonal Propagation

Invitro multiplication of elites and high yielding types would be useful for clonal propagation of different crops and are used in producing new varieties in vegetatively propagated crops such as potato, sugarcane etc. The reason for invitro clonal propagations also include ease and efficiency of increase, maintenance of heterozygosity, sexual sterility and for incompatibility problems, Thus reforestation of Nepal would require millions of plantlets, the most useful application of this technology could be for this purpose.

2) Pathogen Free Plants

By the application of biotechnology we are able to produce pathogen free plant. Exclusions and culture of the shoot meristem with only one or two leaf primordia often results in the physical elimination of virus (Karth 1984). Meristem-tip culture has also been used for elimination of bacteria, fungus from commercial plants such as carnations, gladioli; deffenbachia and nelargonium (Walkey 1978) are mentionable.

3) Germ Plasma Storage and Conservation

Biodiversity of many crops are lost each year by Neglect or mass eradication of their habitants for alternative uses. The objective of germ plasma conservation specifically of endangered, threatened and rare plants species is to ensure its availability in future for crop improvement. Thus by using biotechnology we can preserve genetic resources either in cryo preservation or gene bank which are used for crop improvement.

4) Somaclonal Variation

Somaclonal variation is one of the aspects of tissue culture technology and widely recommended for crop improvement especially of desired traits for drought, temperature and disease tolerance. Somaclonal variation is valuable source of new genetic information for breeders / geneticists which can be used in breeding purpose for crop improvement. Similarly protoclones or calliclones are produced from either single protoplast or single cells respectively and these often produced regenerated plants which show variation in phenotypes as compared to the original mother plant which is used for crop improvement.

5) Protoplast Culture or Fusion

Protoplast from different species can be induced to fuse by exposure to certain chemical or electric current. The resulting somatic hybrid may be grown invitro to produce callus tissue from which whole plant may be regenerated. Protoplast fusions help in crop improvement by somatic hybridization and cell modification to introduce novel gene or novel hybrid plant.

6) Production of Haploids by Anther Culture

The production of haploids and for spontaneous di-haploid plants through anther culture is extremely helpful in shortening the duration in varietals development. Haploids plants obtained either from anther culture or ovule culture may be grown normally under in-vitro condition up to flowering stage but viable gametes are not formed due to absence of onset of homologous chromosome and consequently there is no seed set. Application of haploids for crop improvement in plant breeding for releasing new varieties through fi-double-haploids system, selection of mutants resistant to disease, developing of asexual lines of trees/perennials species, transfer of desired alien genes etc.

Tissue Culture

Tissue culture technique has developed around the concept that a cell is totipotent that it has the capacity and ability to develop into whole organism. Explants can be obtained from inter-organ, inter-tissue and inter-cellular interactions and subjected to direct experimental control. Due to playing with plant tissues in laboratory this technique has been referred by some researchers as a 'botanical laser' whose numerous uses are yet to be fully understood.

Application of tissue culture techniques for improvement of crop of is shown in diagram below.

Clonal Propagation

Application in Animal Field

1) Artificial Insemination

A male animal produces millions of sperms daily. Theoretically it can be inseminate females regularly and produce several offspring's. This excess capacity of male has been utilized through developing new technologies for artificial insemination which can be said as the first biotechnology. In context of Nepal AI techniques is gaining popularity day-by-day.

2) Transgenic Animals

It involves the gene from one animal, modification of them in lab and introduction of them into animals of same or different species by using biotechnology and genetic engineering techniques. Transgenic animals have been instrumental in providing new insight into mechanism of development and developmental gene regulation, into the action of oncogenes and into the intricate cell interactions within the immune system.

Areas of possible investigation of domestic livestock by using the transgenic technology have been given in figure.

Milk Blood

* Increase production * Pharmaceuticals

* Milk addition * Circulating peptides

* Pharmaceuticals * D/S resistance

* Extraction

TRANSGENIC LIVESTOCK.

* By product * Hormones

* Feather * Releasing factors

*Wool * Neuropathies

(Source: A Text Book of Biotechnology R.C. Dubey, 2006, page no. 266)

3) Embryo transfer (ET)

ET is technique by which embryos (fertilized ova) are collected from the reproductive tract of a female animal prior nidation and transplanted into the reproductive tract of other animal to complete their gestation i.e. conception, implantation and delivery.

Applications of ET

a) New breeding strategies.

b) Reduction of the period of the animal improvement.

c) Higher replication rate of valuable genotype.

d) Fostering mother transfer immunity.

e) Conservation and utilization of genetic resources.

f) Study of reproductive disease.

4) Invitro-Fertilization (IVF) technology

The term 'invitro' means in glass or in artificial conditions and IVF refers to the fact that fertilization of egg by sperm had occurred not in uterus but outside the uterus at artificially maintained optimum condition. In recent years the IVF technology has revolutionized the field of animal biotechnology because of production of more and more animals as compared to animal production through normal cases.

5) Fermentation

Fermentation is defined as 'any anaerobic process for the production of useful products through mass culture of micro-organisms' where as in a biochemical sense this word means the numerous oxidation reduction reactions in which organic compounds used as a source of carbon and energy. Besides productions of beverages, food, fermentation technology is also used to produce major veterinary by products from microbial fermentation such as antibiotics, disease diagnostic reagents.

6) Vaccine production

Vaccine is chemical substances prepared from the proteins (antigen) of other animals which confer immunity to a particular vinrus. Vaccines may be live vaccines, killed vaccines, inactivated vaccines, sub-unit vaccines, DNA vaccines etc. For the synthesis of these types of vaccines biotechnological principles is used such as vaccines for Rabies virus (RV), vaccines for FMD virus (FMOV)

Other different possible application of biotechnology is animal field are.

7) Pregnancy Diagnosis.

8) Antibodies Tissue Culture and Cell Cultures.

9) Application of Molecular Markers in Improvement of Livestock.

10) Hormone Production.

11) Clinical Practices such as ELISA, MRI etc.

Conclusion

Applications of biotechnology in agriculture have been given more emphasize and up to some extent application of biotechnology will be a valuable tool in solving problems of hunger, energy supply, improving quality of life and to reduce environmental pollution. However in Nepal, we should refrain from doing basic research in biotechnology, we should mainly use proven technologies to enhance our traditional agriculture system. Our continuing pollution of atmosphere and the problem of feeding the human growing population will make agricultural biotechnology more important by releasing highly improved varieties/breeds which should be disease resistance, stress resistance with high production. Thus for the improvement of agricultural field in Nepal, importance of application of Biotechnology in agriculture field is increasing day-by-day.

References

Dubey, RC 2006, A Text Book of Biotechnology, S.Chand & Company Ltd.

Molecular Biology, Biotechnology and Environment, 1997 Nepal molecular Biology society (NEMBIS) Nepal

Ranjit, M 2007, 'Agriculture Biotechnology in Nepal’, Pratibimba, vol. 4.

Bishnu Bhusal 'Dangali'

B.Sc. (Hons) Ag. 5^th semester