Nutraceutical Values of Horticultural Crops and Products

The motivation to conduct further research on the potential of plants to address public health issues and consumer demands has arisen from the efforts of government, industry, and research institutes. This is due to the promise of Marker Assisted Selection to expedite the development of crop varieties with desirable traits. Progress has been made in mapping and tagging many horticulturally important genes with morphological, biochemical, and molecular markers, which form the foundation for marker assisted selection in crops. These methods offer great potential for improving the efficiency of conventional plant breeding by allowing selection to be carried out on molecular markers linked to the trait of interest rather than the trait itself. The potential of plant cell and callus culture systems as a bio processing and production method for useful metabolites of nutraceutical importance has been advanced through bioreactor technology.

The rapidly developing field of functional foods and nutraceuticals requires research and development to meet the needs of producers, processors, and consumers. Producers seek new opportunities to increase farm income, while processors seek value-added food products, health ingredients, and new uses for agricultural production, by-products, and new products for new and existing markets. Consumers worldwide want increased assurance of the safety and quality of the food system and enhanced environmental performance of the agriculture and agri-food sector. Provinces and communities are seeking economic development opportunities for horticulture. This book will be useful in better understanding, utilization of crop diversity, underutilized crops, and their residues, as well as improvement in post-harvest technology and development of new functional foods with greater use of bioactive compounds and other quality traits.