Bt brinjal seeds. Bt brinjal The Bt brinjal is a suite of transgenic brinjals (also known as an eggplant or aubergine) created by inserting a crystal protein gene ("Cry1Ac") from the soil bacterium "Bacillus thuringiensis" into the genome of various brinjal cultivars. The insertion of the gene, along with other genetic elements such as promoters, terminators and an antibiotic resistance marker gene into the brinjal plant is accomplished using "Agrobacterium"-mediated genetic transformation. The Bt brinjal has been developed to give resistance against lepidopteron insects, in particular the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer ("Leucinodes orbonalis")(FSB). Mahyco, an Indian seed company based in Jalna,
Vegetable Lamb of Tartary Vegetable Lamb of Tartary The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: "Agnus scythicus" or "Planta Tartarica Barometz") is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit. It was believed the sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died. Underlying the legend is the cotton plant, which was unknown in Northern Europe before the Norman conquest of Sicily. Thomas Browne's "Pseudodoxia Epidemica" named it as the "Boramez". In Ephraim Chambers' "Cyclopædia", Agnus scythicus was described