Uma Percepção Crítica Sobre Técnicas De Manipulação Genética

Since its beginning agriculture has achieved considerable progress mainly because of the development of Genetics and corresponding applications on genetic manipulation techniques. Almost all improvement obtained so far has been due to the so-called conventional techniques. Modern Biotechnology contributed to new techniques to further increase genetic manipulation. Cultivated area of transgenic plants is being increased worldwide annually although still facing strong opposition from some institutions. However, it is becoming increasingly more evident that transgenics are as safe as or safer than corresponding non-transgenic counterparts. In this regard, transgenics should be considered a complement to conventionally improved varieties. The complexity to obtain transgenics, together with the slowness to reach approval by biosafety commissions, lead to a considerable delay in the effective utilization of these materials to society. Although biotechnology techniques represent an important contribution to the incorporation of desirable characteristics into cultivars, conventional techniques, especially the available schemes of recurrent selection with proved efficiency, still present a great potencial to be explored in maize breeding. Key-words: maize, conventional breeding, Biotechnology, transgenic , selection.