www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Scientists are developing a genetically-modified (GM) abaca to come up with
a variant that is resistant to major viral diseases threatening the
country's fiber industry, December 2006.

The project aims to come up with the GM-abaca that is resistant to
bunchy-top, mosaic and bract mosaic viruses by 2011, a report from the
Biotechnology for Life Media and Advocacy Resource Center said Monday.

A P20-million budget has been proposed to finance the project. This will be
led by the Fiber Industry Development Authority and the Biotechnology
Program Implementation Unit of the Department of Agriculture.

The project is in tandem with the University of the Philippines? National
Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in Diliman and the
Department of Horticulture in Los Banos.

The project is expected to boost government efforts to control diseases that
continue to threaten the industry and the country?s supply share in the
world market.

Abaca, known worldwide as Manila hemp, is one of the country?s major
agricultural exports.

The Philippine Coconut Authority, meanwhile, will embark on a project that
will help establish a protocol for the clonal propagation of coconut to
improve the efficiency of somatic embryo formation, germination and plantlet
regeneration.

Top scientists and tissue-culture experts from the PCA-Albay Research Center
based in Guinobatan, Albay, is leading the two-year modern biotechnology
project.

Clonal propagation remains to be the only alternative means in mass
propagating the coconut and though plantlet regeneration.

Somatic embryo formation and germination remain as the bottleneck in the
clonal propagation of the ?tree of life?.

Past experiments on induction and germination of somatic embryos were almost
always focused on addition of various substances reported to have induced
somatic embryogenesis in other crops.

[www.abs-cbnnews.com]

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