Using Transgenic Plants as a Source of Genetic Diversity for Breeding Greater Drought Tolerance into Wheat

The emergence of the agricultural biotechnology industry at the end of the 20th century brought with it products that fall into two basic categories: herbicide resistant and insect resistant crops (i.e., maize, soybean, and cotton). In the late 1980s and the 1990s, attempts were made to develop a range of other products whose qualities were to include improved fungal disease resistance, starch composition, fruit quality, and so on. As the agricultural biotech industry matured, standard product development processes were adopted. For agricultural products, the commercialization of initial discoveries generally takes 8–12 years, from gene discovery to target validation. As genomics applications emerged, the agricultural biotechnology industry recognized the potential to identify candidate intervention points for commercial traits. In reaction to stresses, plants adjust themselves at the levels of morphology, phenology, physiology, and biochemistry. Because these responses are presumed to be regulated by genes, efforts in recent years have focused on the isolatio