Explain in brief application of biotechnology in agriculture.

Explanation

Biotechnological applications in Agriculture.
1. Genetically modified organisms whose genes have been altered by manipulation are prepared for tolerance to abiotic stress, chemical pesticide, to reduce post harvest losses, enriched nutritional value of food etc.
2. Insect resistant plants are prepared in which genes encoding for insecticidal proteins are incorporated. Thus use of insecticide will be reduced. e.g. Bacillus thuringienesis has cry gene which codes for insecticidal crystal proteins. This gene is incorporated in cotton, corn, rice, tomato etc. so that when insect eats such toxin containing cells its cells are dead.
3. Pest resistant plants are developed on the basis of RNA interference (RNAI). RNA i is the method of cellular defense, RNA i takes place when mRNA of the pest is silenced i.e. not allowed to translate by binding with a complementary ds RNA. When mRNA of pest does not encode any protein then parasite will not survive. Complementary RNA (CRNA) comes from infection by viruses having RNA or mobile genetic elements (transposons). So in host such gene is introduced using Agrobacterium that d sRNA is formed to silence the parasitic mRNA.