Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

The term legume is derived from the Latin word legumen meaning ?to gather.? There are some 17,000 species of the leguminous plants, which are known for their nitrogen fixing property and the high protein content. Only 20% legumes have been explored for the root nodules to be present. Further, out of these 20% explored species, only 90% showed the presence of root nodules. There are no reports on the presence of nodulated legumes from our state i.e.; Jammu & Kashmir. The nodules contain the nitrogen fixing bacteria which have the ability to fix the atmospheric nitrogen directly, instead of utilizing it from the soil. In the present world scenario with the population of 6.8 billion there is an expected rise to 9.1 billion people by 2050.With it comes the question of feeding these extra mouths. In past from 3 billion between 1961 and 2007,the world population has now almost duplicated ,even then agricultural output kept pace and needs to continue to do so. But the climate change due to global warming in particular, adds a large degree of uncertainty to projections of agricultural output. The Genetically modified (GM) crops will prove as an essential component of the sustainable Agriculture in future as a remedy for world hunger. The Cereals are the most important crops for mankind and in future attempts will be made to integrate these nitrogen fixing genes into cereals, mainly Oryza sativa. The Scientists have been using different ways for making it a reality. In early 1990s, the Nod factors were identified in legumes, leading to primary efforts to produce the root nodules on non leguminous plants itself. Second, effort was to introduce the receptors for Nod factors into the crop plants. With the scientific advancement in the field of biological nitrogen fixation, it was discovered that solely Nod factor genes, are not responsible for the nitrogen fixation but there are some alternate nitrogen fixation genes e.g; as are in Bradyrhizobium. So, now the focus has changed from root nodulation in non leguminous plants to direct transfer of the nitrogen fixing genes into cell?s genome.

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