Book Reviews

The Impact of Biotechnology on Agriculture comprises the proceedings of The International Conference: ‘The Meeting Point between Fundamental and Applied in-vitro Culture Research', held at Amiens (France) on 10-12 July 1989. The book under discussion is volume 8 of the series Current Plant Science and Biotechnology in Agriculture. It contains 53 contributions, presented at the conference, 28 as selected extended papers and 25 as abstracts. The book starts with a special essay on the history of tissue culture by S.C. Maheshwari, followed by five sections. Section I on plant regeneration includes clonal multiplication, organogenesis, somatic embryogenesis and haploidy. Section 2 on plant genetic engineering includes non-sexual gene transfer, somatic hybridization, Agrohacterium-mediated and direct gene transfer, somaclonal variations and isolation of mutants resistant to herbicides, insects, plant pathogens, etc. Two papers, one on the cytoskeleton and the other on glyphosate tolerance, constitute section 3, named ‘special topics’. Cryopreservation of plant cells is the subject of one paper in section 4. Section 5 contains abstracts. The editors have tried to touch upon a range of disciplines across the entire spectrum of plant biotechnology ranging from in-vitro plant multiplication to the use of recombinant DNA. This book therefore gives a good survey of the current developments in plant biotechnology. The editors requested that contributing authors write a paper on their respective subject of no more than 20 pages. The authors had great freedom concerning the contents of the paper. The consequence is that both the quality and the extent of the treatment of the subject differs strongly between the different papers. Depending on one’s subject of interest this book can give valuable information. It contains a large number of references and can therefore be used as a starting point for a literature search on the treated subjects. For a very detailed survey of the current developments in plant biotechnology I would recommend a consultation of the proceedings of the Vllth International Congress on Plant Tissue and Cell Culture held in Amsterdam on 24-29 June, 1990.