Plant Trek II

What this book is….and isn’t.

This ebook started out, in 2013, as a compilation of some blog posts from my website HowPlantsWork.com. In linking these posts together, I found I needed to expand and update a lot of the information, which resulted in the first edition.

What you have here is the updated, reorganized, and expanded, second edition. 

What I’ve attempted to do is to provide readers with a “stroll” through the subject of plant genetic engineering and plant biotechnology. The trail starts with a brief history of the subject, then spends a little time with how it’s done and how plant biotechnology has developed over the past 40 years or so, including how plant biotechnology “hobbyists” may be getting into the act. The path then branches off to brief side trips into the social, ecological, and legal implications of this technology. Next, we explore what sort of interesting things one could conceivably do (and indeed already has been done) with GMO plants. Nearing the trails end, there’s a bit about where plant biotechnology may be headed in the future, including the implications of new, revolutionary gene-editing techniques, such as CRISPR.