A CRITICAL PERCEPTION ON GENETIC MANIPULATION TECHNIQUES

Abstract

Since its beginning agriculture has achieved considerable progress mainly becauseof the development of Genetics and corresponding applications on genetic manipulationtechniques. Almost all improvement obtained so far has been due to the so-called conventionaltechniques. Modern Biotechnology contributed to new techniques to further increase geneticmanipulation. Cultivated area of transgenic plants is being increased worldwide annually althoughstill facing strong opposition from some institutions. However, it is becoming increasingly moreevident that transgenics are as safe as or safer than corresponding non-transgenic counterparts.In this regard, transgenics should be considered a complement to conventionally improvedvarieties. The complexity to obtain transgenics, together with the slowness to reach approvalby biosafety commissions, lead to a considerable delay in the effective utilization of these materialsto society. Although biotechnology techniques represent an important contribution to theincorporation of desirable characteristics into cultivars, conventional techniques, especially theavailable schemes of recurrent selection with proved efficiency, still present a great potencial tobe explored in maize breeding.

Keywords

• maize
• conventional breeding
• Biotechnology
• transgenic
• selection