Cool‐Season Forage Grasses

Abstract

Cool‐season grasses provide most of the forage consumed by ruminant animals in temperate areas of the world. Transgenic plants have been obtained for a number of cool‐season grass species, including tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, Italian ryegrass, orchardgrass, Kentucky bluegrass, and Russian wildrye. This chapter describes the origin, taxonomy, cytological features, economic importance, and biotechnological improvement of these species. Progresses in genetic transformation techniques and the use of transgenic technology for improvement of these species are summarized.