Bøger i Current Plant Science and Biotechnology in Agriculture serien

Nitrogen availability is one of the most critical factors that limits plant productivity. The largest reservoir of nitrogen is the atmosphere, but this gaseous molecular nitrogen only becomes available to plants through the biological nitrogen fixation process, which only prokaryotic cells have developed. The discovery that microbes were providing fixed nitrogen to legumes and the isolation of the first nitrogen-fixing bacteria occured at the end the 19th Century, in Louis Pasteur's time. We are now building on more than 100 years of research in this field and looking towards the 21st Century. The International Nitrogen Fixation Congress series Started more than 20 years ago. The format of this Congress is designed to gather scientists from very diverse origins, backgrounds, interests and scientific approaches and is a forum where fundamental knowledge is discussed alongside applied research. This confluence of perspectives is, we believe, extremely beneficial in raising new ideas, questions and concepts.

The First Asia --- Pacific Conference on Agricultural Biotechnology was held in Beijing, China on 20-24, August, 1992. Over half the population in the world is in the Asian and Pacific Region. With an increasing population and decreasing farming lands, it is important to develop agricultural biotechnology for improvement of the productivity, profitability and stability of the farming system. The Conference's main objectives were to bring together scientists working in different fields of agricultural biotechnology to stimulate discussion on this important process and to have an appraisal of the most recent studies concerning genetic manipulation of plants, plant cell and tissue culture, plant gene regulation, plant-microbe interaction, animal biotechnology etc. The Conference was attended by 391 scientists from different countries and regions. This volume presents the contributions of the lectures and a selected number of posters, which are an up-to-date account of the state of knowledge on agricultural biotechnology. The book provides a valuable reference source not only for specialists in agricultural biotechnology, but also for researchers working on related aspects of agronomy, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, microbiology and animal sciences. It is with great pleasure to acknowledge the contributions of the authors in assuring the prompt publication of this volume. We would also extend our sincere thank to Kluwer Academic Publishers for the publication of these proceedings.

The 12th International Congress on Nitrogen Fixation was held in Foz do Iguacu, Parana State, Brazil, from the 12th to 17th of September, 1999. This volume constitutes the proceedings of this Congress and represents a compilation of the presentations by scientists from 38 countries who came to discuss the progress made, to exchange views and to collaborate. Since the first meeting in Pullman, Washington, USA, in 1974, this series of Congresses has been held three times in the United States, four times in Western Europe, in Australia, Mexico and Russia, and now for the first time in South America. Brazil was a most appropriate choice because Brazilian agriculture is especially dependent on biological nitrogenfixation. An important example is the soybean crop. The 30 million metric tons of grain produced each year relies solely on symbiotic nitrogen fixation. N-fertilizers are expensive in Brazil and, in the absence of the biological process, this crop would require 4-5 M tonnes of N at an annual cost of almost 1 billion dollars. Crop rotation, soil reclamation, forestry, forage mixed cropping, intercropping with grasses and legumes, associative nitrogen fixation with non-legume crops, such as sugarcane, and other agricultural practices in Brazil are also dependent on biological nitrogen fixation. The Brazilian experience with biological nitrogen fixation is a paradigm to be followed by all countries where nitrogen fertiliser is expensive or where present day environmental concerns demand a feasible, efficient and inexpensive alternative to chemical N-fertilizers.

201-2, 1984), Anthony Watkinson - then a Commissioning Editor at Oxford University Press has described several reasons which have led him to believe that "Conference proceedings - symposia - are generally disliked .

Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Nitrogen Fixation, Corvallis, Or., August 4-10, 1985

Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on the Molecular Genetics of Plant-Microbe Interactions, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, July 27-31, 1986

Proceedings of the International Conference The Meeting Point between Fundamental & Applied In Vitro Culture Research; Amiens, France, July 10-12, 1989

Proceedings of the 7th International Protoplast Symposium, Wageningen, The Netherlands, December 6-11, 1987

Proceedings of the VIIth International Congress on Plant Tissue and Cell Culture, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 24-29, 1990

Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference held in Maryland, June 2-7, 1985

Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Seeds, Reading, 1995

Proceedings of the Third International Food Legumes Research Conference

Proceedings of the Second International Food Legume Research Conference on Pea, Lentil, Faba Bean, Chickpea, and Grasspea, Cairo, Egypt, 12-16 April 1992

Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on Nitrogen Fixation, St. Petersburg, Russia, May 28--June 3, 1995

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Generic reviews of the taxonomy, centre of diversity, ecogeographic distribution, genetic diversity distribution, conservation status, conservation gaps and future research needs are provided, along with a discussion of the importance of rhizobia to the maintenance of legume diversity.

Proceedings of the International Symposium `Cellular and Molecular Aspects of Biosynthesis and Action of the Plant Hormone Ethylene', Agen, France, August 31-September 4, 1992

Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on the Molecular Genetics of Plant-Microbe Interactions; Interlaken, Switzerland, September 9-14, 1990