Table of Contents

​Chapter 1. Commercial micropropagation of some economically important crops.- Chapter 2. Clonal propagation, a tested technique for increasing productivity: A review of bamboos, eucalyptus and chirpine.- Chapter 3. In vitro production of medicinal compounds from endangered and commercially important medicinal plants.- Chapter 4. Double haploid production and its applications in crop improvement.- Chapter 5. Encapsulation technology: an assessment of its role in in vitro conservation of medicinal and threatened plant species.- Chapter 6. Somaclonal Variation in Improvement of Agricultural Crops: Recent Progress.- Chapter 7. Genetic fidelity studies for testing true to type plants in some horticultural and medicinal crops using molecular markers.- Chapter 8. Callus culture approach towards production of plant secondary metabolites.- Chapter 9. Transgenic implications for biotic and abiotic stress tolerancein agricultural crops.- Chapter 10. Production of marker-free transgenic plants.- Chapter 11. Recent progress in cereals biofortification to alleviate malnutrition in India - An overview.- Chapter 12. Potential and perspective of plant proteinase inhibitor genes in genetic improvement of economically important crops.- Chapter 13. Global Status of Genetically Modified Crops.- Chapter 14. Organic GMOs: Combining ancient wisdom with modern biotechnology.- Chapter 15. Genomics in crop improvement: Potential applications, challenges and future prospects.- Chapter 16. Proteomic Approaches to Understand Plant Response to Abiotic Stresses.- Chapter 17. Plant Metabolomics for Crop Improvement.- Chapter 18. New generation plant phenomics applications for next-generation agricultural practices.- Chapter 19. RNA interference technology as a novel and potential alternative for plant improvement.- Chapter 20. miRNA-mediated regulation of bioticand abiotic stress responses in plants.- Chapter 21. The role of nano-fertilizers in smart agriculture: an effective approach to increase nutrient use efficiency.- Chapter 22. Shifting paradigm towards the crops: From model plants to crops and employing the genome engineering to target traits.- Chapter 23. QTLS and gene tagging in crop plants.- Chapter 24. Nanotechnology and Robotics: The twin drivers of agriculture in future.- Chapter 25. Hydroponic and aeroponic cultivation of economically important crops for production of quality biomass.- Chapter 26. Amaranth, Buckwheat and Chenopodium: The ABC Nutraceuticals of North-Western Himalayas.- Chapter 27. Application of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) in crop productivity improvement and sustainable agriculture.- Chapter 28. Mushroom Biology and advances.- Chapter 29. Enzymes and Microbes in Agro-processing.- Chapter 30. Application of Bioinformatics in crop improvement.-

About the Author

Dr. Dinesh Kumar Srivastava has retired as Director Extension Education, prior to this he worked as Professor and Head in the Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India. He did his post-doctoral studies in the field of Plant Molecular Biology at the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Moscow, USSR and at Washington University, St. Louis, USA. He has 32 years of research and teaching experience in the field of Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology. He has guided several M.Sc. and Ph.D. students and published 110 research/ review papers in the journals of national and international repute. He has participated in many national and international conferences. His main area of research includes Plant tissue culture, Genetic transformation and Molecular characterization of plants. He is life member of various National and International Academic bodies/societies. He has receivedmany awards for his scientific contributions.

Dr. Ajay Kumar Thakur is presently working as Senior Scientist (Biotechnlogy) at ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur, Rajasthan. He has published 46 research/review papers in various journals of International and National repute, authored/edited three books, contributed 8 book chapters and 22 popular articles. Dr. Thakur is associated with Brassica juncea improvement programme using biotechnological interventions from last thirteen years. He is presently working on germplasm characterization and association mapping of various agronomically important traits in this oilseed crop. He has been granted one Indian patent and associated in the development of two high yielding Indian mustard varieties and one gobhi sarson variety, and three disease resistant Indian mustard genetic stocks. Dr. Thakur has received many awards from various societies and scientific organizations forhis scientific contribution. He is also an esteemed Member of Plant Tissue Culture Association of India and National Academy of Sciences-India.

Dr. Pankaj Kumar is presently working as Assistant Professor (Biotechnology), Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India. He did his post-doctoral studies at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi and at Council of Scientific & Industrial Research - Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. Dr. Kumar research specialization is plant molecular biology, functional genomics, plant genetic engineering, and medicinal plant biotechnology. He has published 35 research/review papers in various journals of International and National repute, contributed 13 book chapters and 5 popular articles. Dr. Kumar has received many awards from various societies and scientific organizations for his scientific contribution.