Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Ornamental industry is one of the fast growing industries worldwide, especially in Japan and China. Global production of ornamental potted plants and cut flowers comprises about 50 billion ?, corresponding to an estimated global consumer consumption between 100 to 150 billion ?. Appropriate plant height is one of the most important traits in poinsettia. It is a non- food and non-feed ornamental plant, is a contemporary symbol of Christmas in most parts of the world. The dwarf characteristics in poinsettia induced by the poinsettia branch inducing phytoplasma can be obtained by using the free branching cultivars, and enhanced by spraying growth retardants such as CCC (chlormequat) or Alar (daminozide) that inhibits the biosynthesis of the plant hormone gibberellin (GA). Growth retardants are expensive, time consuming and have negative impact on human health as well as the environment and in the near future. Breeding for compact growth of poinsettia is thus of importance. Traditional plant breeding approach is time consuming and inefficient due to the heterozygous genetic background of poinsettia. Genetic engineering is thus an important approach for production of compact poinsettia plants with reduced application of growth retardants. This is considered a more straightforward and effective approach and is increasingly adopted. Here we report the production of transgenic poinsettia with compact growth and without chemical application by overexpressing the Arabidopsis short-internode (SHI) gene in poinsettia.

Biography

Md. Ashraful Islam is doing his PhD work at Bioforsk (Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research) and enrolled at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), Norway. He has published some papers in the reputed journals. In his PhD, he is using different tools to get the compact poinsettia plants. Mr Islam is getting good result which will be interesting to publish in international journals. He is having about six years teaching and research experience at the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh, Bangladesh. He has attended in some international conferences and training courses.