Genetic Improvement of Horticultural Plants: Transgenic or Non-Transgenic?

Although the global biotech crop hectarage continues to grow for the 19th consecutive year, the debate over the transgenic plants is getting hotter and hotter worldwide. I will discuss technologies that can be used to produce non- transgenic products from transgenic plants such as the gene deletor technology. I will also discuss technologies that are highly efficient to produce non-transgenic traits in crop plants, such as CRISPR technologies. I will further discuss pros and cons of these technologies in genetic improvement of horticultural crops.