Springer Jatropha, Challenges for a New Energy Crop: Volume 1: Farming, Economics and Biofuel

The book will be a broad and comprehensive look on Jatropha until the details since the book is being contributed by international experts worldwide that have already published works in the international press of Science. Illustrations, tables geographic maps, GPS location, etc are added by each contributors according to the feeling they have concerning what they think their contribution should be. This book will benefit the scientific community immensely. Being aware of any challenges related to Jatropha, i.e. (i) its economy in Asia (India, China) and South America (Brazil), (ii) basics of biofuel technology, (iii) physiology, (iv) farming, (v) byproducts, (vi) biotechnology, (vii) genetic resource (germplasm) and their benefit for the crop by genetic transfer, (viii) genetic map, (ix) comparative genetics, (x) genomics. Breeders and technologist will have access to a complete digested view on Jatropha to decide where and how they should move on with their investigations. From the Back Cover Jatropha, Challenges for a New Energy Crop, Volume 1 reports on the state of the art of scientific investigations on the new crop Jatropha curcas made during the past decade. The progresses obtained on the knowledge of this abstemious, semi-wild species are already impressive and were mainly achieved in just a decade (2001- 2011). This knowledge extends from basic Jatropha physiology and biological reproduction to the basic agronomic practices and systems for its productive management, but also the complete set of biotechnological tools, such as in vitro culture, genetic transformation, genomic sequence, genetic map, and markers assisted selection that are necessary for its selective breeding. These scientific and technological achievements paved the way for the future technological management and domestication of Jatropha as an industrial oilseed crop able to contribute to the feeding of the transport system. The two book series on Jatropha is the first comprehensive compilation by global experts. It is an essential text in view of the importance that Jatropha demonstrated worldwide by its large scale cultivation and emerging value for energy business as a biofuel. This first volume is presented in five units comprising 30 chapters covering the main aspects of the worldwide economic importance of Jatropha as well as its physiology, farming, oil processing, by-products, biodiesel, and biofuel combustion. Volume 1 provides a comprehensive picture on the whole productive chain of Jatropha and helps the reader to make a mental representation concerning the potential of Jatropha as a crop. About the Author Nicolas Carels has been graduate in Agronomy in Belgium and did a PhD in plant pathology (FUSAGx, Gembloux) prior to work as a scientist on the elaboration of the first genetic map of sugarbeet at the end of the 1980's (ICIseed-SES, Belgium). He then moved to Paris (IJM, CNRS, France) where he did a PhD on the genome organization in plants. He continued his work on genomics in Italy (SZN, Naples) and Spain (INTA-CAB, Madrid, Torrejon de Ardoz) prior to move to Brazil (Bahia, Ilhéus, UESC) where he contributed to the application of bioinformatics and genomics to the improvement of Cacao and Rubber Tree for resistance to fungal diseases. He took Jatropha at its beginning when it was declared a strategic crop for the Brazilian economy by President Lula. His investigations covered the measure of the genome size by flow cytometry and the application of reverse genetics to detect QTLs for oil production with the purpose of breeding Jatropha for this trait. He also published an extensive review (ABR) on Jatropha and more recently an overview on the bioenergies (InTech) with special concern for climate change mitigation and biodiversity preservation. He is now a Federal Officer of Fiocruz (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and is interested by the exploration of genomics, bioinformatics and natural products