Coconut and Oilpalm are the two important perennial trees yielding edible oil. This book outlines the techniques on genetic enhancement to step up productivity on one hand and to reduce yield loss due to the occurrence of pests and diseases which could be contained by control measures and integrated management practices on the other. Progress of coconut improvement work in various countries including India was reviewed and results of research were presented. Exploitation of heterosis for greater expression of productivity in terms of nut, copra and oil has made significant progress in recent years. Genetic divergence, genetic correlation, selection index, heretability and prepotency are dealt with besides reviewing the work on clonal propagation, tissue culture and embryo culture in coconut. Oilpalm research is still in the infant stage in India. Breeding objectives and methodologies for oilpalm research are presented in this book. This include progress made in marker assisted selection. RFLP technique, identification of transgenic palms, clonal multiplication and embryo culture.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR T. Ramanathan
Dr. T. Ramanathan has specialized in oilseed crops with reference to genetics and plant breeding. He had 37.5 years of research experience to his credit which include 10 ears of teaching of under-graduate, post-graduate and doctoral programme students in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. He has published 116 research papers and 71 extension papers (popular articles) in oilseed crop in the national and international journals. He is the author of the following three books: (1. Genetic Improvement of Groundnut, (2) Coconut and Oil Palm-Genetic Upgradation and Protection (3) ‘Thennai Sakupadi’ in Tamil 2001. 4th revised edition. He was awarded N. Veeraragharavalu Naidu gold medal and shield for the best research worker in Agricultural Botany for the year 1977-78 and Hexamar Agricultural Research and Development Foundation (HARDF) award for the significant contribution to “Varietal Improvement in Groundnut†for 2001-02 (awarded in January 2003). His biographical note was published in the following directories: (1) Directory of International Coconut Research Workers, (2) International Directory of Coconut workers, (3) Reference India, (4) Indo-European Who’s Who, (5) Indo-Arab Who’s Who, 1996. (6) Asia-Pacific Who’s Who, (197. (7) Indo-Asian Who’s Who 2003 (Vol. 2). (8) Asian/American Who’s Who-2003 (Vol. 3).
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