Plant biotechnology

Book R e v i e w s Integrated Pest Management. A Catalogue of Tr~;ni,*g and Extensions Materials, by F. A. N. van Alebeek. ISBN 90-72620-01-1 (Department of Entomology); 929081-018-X (CTA). The Netherlands: Wageningen Agricultural University. Workers in developing countries find it increasingly difficult to obtain up-todate information on crop protection methods that conserve and enhance naturally occurring limiting factors, such as predators, as much as possible. Much of the relevant information is scattered in booklets with a limited distribution, so a group of nongovernmental organizations in the Netherlands initiated this inventory of material containing information on integrated pest management. The catalogue consists essentially of eleven sections. Six sections (A-F) provide the title, author, publisher and, where available, the price of handbooks, including textbooks, manuals, slide sets, posters, films and videos and tape recordings suitable for use or adaptation by extension staff. There is also a brief synopsis of the contents of each of the items listed, indicating whether the text is mainly concerned with the situation in Western Europe, USA or has a more general relevance to IPM. The majority of the publications listed are in English, but booklets in other languages such as Bahasa Malays, Bengali, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili are available. The next three sections (G-I) list newsletters and periodicals, international research institutes and information centres and bookshops, all of which are important sources of information. A future edition should include leading national research centres as these also have published many useful guide books of relevance to other countries. SectionJ lists publications and other material that specifically refer to the misuse and overuse of pesticides. This is followed by a list (Section K) of some of the organizations actively concerned with the negative aspects of pesticide use. The compiler of these lists has included them in an attempt to balance the lack of information provided by the pesticide industry. The book is completed by five

indexes giving titles, organizations, crops (geographically), crops (pests and diseases) and crops (methods and techniques of crop protection), so users should have no difficulty in locating relevant material. The information in this catalogue will be valuable to all those wishing to help the small-scale farmer in the developing countries. It is a pity, therefore, that the price of many items is not given, even though the publisher's recommended price should have been easily obtainable. Some of the publications that may be too expensive for some users should at least be available within an area. Much of the material is, in practice, not suitable for direct use by the farmers, but should be available for extension workers and others to adapt to local requirements. It is to be hoped that the catalogue will be revised and issued at regular intervals. Future editions might also include suppliers of materials and equipment for use in farmer trials and sampling pest populations such as pheromones and traps. G. A. MATTHEWS

Plant B|otechnology, ed. by S-D. Kung and C.J. Arntzen. 0409 900680 (423pp; £60). Boston: Butterworths. 1988. Thanks to rapid methodological advances in the areas of molecular biology and cell biology, plant biotechnology is now one of the fastest-moving fields in biological research. A lot of different disciplines sail under the flag of plant biotechnology (and some of that really looks like old wine in new bottles!) but, for the most part, plant biotechnology, in one way or another, embraces research into the expression and regulation of native or foreign genes in plants. With major plant metabolic functions located in plastids and mitochondria, expression of organellar genes in concert with nuclear genes is also attracting much research attention. Interest in plant biotechnology runs high, not only since molecular analytical methods have opened a new tool box which enables us to extend our basic understanding of plant life faster and deeper than ever before, but also because plant biotechnology holds immense promise for

industrial applications. As a result, industry is funding plant biotechnological research at an increasing rate and much expertise is now housed in private laboratories, where both basic science and commercial applications are being pursued. To some extent the editors of Plant Biotechnology have paid tribute to this fact by inviting several experts from industry to contribute chapters to the book. Given that the field circumscribed by plant biotechnology is huge and ever expanding, what is the focus of this book? The volume's 18 chapters are organized into four parts: I, Basic techniques in plant biotechnology; II, Regulation of gene expression in plants; III, Prospects for manipulation of chloroplast genomes; IV, Applications ofbiotechnology in plant systems. Knowing the long-term personal interests of the editors one cannot be surprised that seven of 18 chapters are devoted to chloroplast biology, photosynthesis and light-regulated gene expression. Being at the very centre of all life on earth, these topics can hardly be overemphasized and the book does a superb job covering them. What concerned me, though, is the space given to the various other topics covered. One can find detailed recipes down to the micromol in R. J. Griesbach's chapter on 'Selected topics in the genetic manipulation of the nuclear genome'. On the other hand, D. Evans had to condense his treatment of cell-culture technologies, which are interesting in their own right and essential for gene transfer purposes, into just one chapter. I was also struggling with R. Wu's chapter on 'Methods for transforming plant cells': from his rather uncritical review one must get the impression that all it took to produce any number of, say, transgenic wheat plants, was simply to apply any one of the various techniques available. This view will certainly not be shared by everyone working in that area. Other chapters offer the reader interesting progress reports on topics such as the molecular architecture of plant genes, regulation of gene expression by stress, auxins or cytokinins and developmentally regulated gene expression during embryogenesis. What does the volume have to offer from a crop protection perspective? Not compiled specifically with the crop

protectionist's interests in mind, it is primarily Rob Fraley's brief chapter 'Genetic engineering for crop improvement' which should be of particular interest. Fraley discusses some of the new approaches taken to genetically modify crop plants to do their own self-defence against pests, diseases and herbicides. It is unlikely that engineered resistant plant varieties are going to replace chemical crop protection in the very near future. But they are early indicators of inevitable changes in the marketplace that will be brought about by the now-unfolding plant biotechnology revolution. All in all, the book is a valuable reference for everyone trying to catch up with the fast development of techniques and their application at the frontier of developmental biology research, full of useful up-to-date information reflective of the truly exciting progress that has been made in plant biotechnology.

C. T. HARMS The Protection o f Rice, 1980 April 198~. Citations f r o m AGRICOLA Concerning Diseases and Other Environmental Considerations, compiled and ed. by C. N. Bebee, National Agricultural Library. (146pp) August 1989. Washington: USDA National Agricultural Library/United States Environmental Protection Office of Pesticide Programs. This paperback booklet consists of a printout of rice-related citations compiled from the A G R I C O L A database. The citations are limited to publications produced by North American authors or published in the United States. The entries are listed under section headings and may be listed under more than one heading. Subject headings cover all major areas of research and some general areas such as 'Agriculture', 'Meteorology and Climatology', 'History', 'Legislation', and 'Economics of Agricultural Production'. Citations are arranged alphabetically under the heading by the first key word in the title. An author index also is included. This publication will be useful for quickly reviewing the North American literature concerning rice that was pubfished during the 1980s. Coverage of the literature is very much 'in depth' and includes university departmental and experiment station reports, as well

as refereed publications and book chapters. The book was intended to be useful to members of the Environmental Protection Agency for use in the regulation of pesticides and to rice researchers interested in all aspects of rice production, breeding, genetics, nutrition, processing, and pest management. The publication will be especially useful to rice scientists working outside the United States: it will expedite a quick review of the North American literature on rice. Possible deficiencies of this text include the limited time period covered, the lack of a subject index, and the limited availability of many of the publications cited. Copies of cited publications are available through the National Agricultural Library (US) with a page charge.

M. C. RUSH Advances in Bioteclmological Processes. Volume 9. Biotechnology in A g r i c u l t u r e , ed. by A. Mizrahi. 1SBN 0 8451-3208-3. (266pp). New York: Alan R. Liss, Inc. 1988. This volume in the series covers aspects of plant technology designed to improve the quality, consistency and productivity of cash crops. There are nine chapters dealing with an apparently disparate range of subjects: secondary products from cell cultures; analysis of plant tissue cultures; laboratory management of plant growth stimulation by electrical treatments; electric gene transfer; production of artificial seeds; VAM inocula; virus detection; plant breeding. It is always interesting to have a review of the current state of the art in areas in which the technology is advancing rapidly. The problem is to decide which are relevant and will lead on to practical propositions and projects. This volume contains much theoretical discussion but offers few clues on their likely impact in agriculture. Indeed, some of the field trial results that are reported make one pessimistic about future developments and, in particular, the speed of transfer of such developing technologies. The book needs slightly stronger editing. The quality of the diagrams, figures and photographs is very variable, ranging from the simplistic to the almost illegible. The reference lists of the bibliography are sometimes presented alphabetically or, in other papers, in sequence.

Overall, a useful reference volume, but rather too diverse to be relevant to practical agronomists.

R. O. TURNER

Crop and Plant Protection: the Practical Foundations, by Rudolf Heitefuss. ISBN 0 7458--0523-X; Halstead Press Edition, ISBN 0 47021385-X. (251pp+index; £39.95). Chichester, Sussex: Ellis Horwood. 1989. This book is the English translation of the second edition of a German text, Pflanzenschutz, originally published in 1974. The author sets out to provide an overview of plant protection for agricultural students. The emphasis on plant pathology reflecting his own specialized knowledge is a welcome change from the larger number of crop protection books that are orientated more to insect pests. Preliminary chapters consider the losses of major crops due to insect pests, diseases and weeds, and the need to control pest populations economically. A brief synopsis on epidemiology and population dynamics is followed by assessment of infestation levels, with EPIPRE given as one example. Cultural controls are then discussed before a long section on chemical control, which concludes with a section on the consequences of using pesticides, such as the development of resistance. The use of pheromones, biological control, integrated control and legislation are covered in the concluding chapters. Much of the information is inevitably brief, but for a book intended to cover the practical foundations of plant protection, the section on chemical formulation and application is so short that it would be of very little benefit to students. References to other books and scientific papers are not included in the text, but readers wishing to seek further information can consult a bibliography at the end of each section. However the majority of these references are from German publications, so this book will have a limited interest to those who are unable to read them. The translation is good, but some sections could have been improved by a crop protection specialist to amend the terminology. In general the book will be mainly suitable for those concerned with temperate crops. G. A. MATTHEWS