Most pathogenic strains of Agrobacterium are able to induce crown gall or hairy
root on both the apical surface (facing the root tip) and the basal surface
(facing the shoot) of carrot (Daucus carota L.) root discs.
"MAF was an integral part of the team in Seattle," says Alan Kerr,
the Ministry's Director of International Policy. The Ministry was closely involved
in the development of a negotiating mandate for the agricultural talks. "The
mandate would have established the scope of the negotiations,"
Allen Kerr was Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Adelaide. He first joined the University in 1951 and spent around three years on secondment to the Tea Research Institute in Ceylon, where he headed the departments of Plant Pathology and Nematology. Kerr's most significant work was his study of crown gall - a plant cancer induced by Agrobacterium tumerfaciens.
GM stands for genetically modified. It’s an unfortunate name because all crops are genetically modified. As used today, the expression means that GM crops have received a gene or genes from another organism as a result of genetic engineering. The donor organism may be another plant, a fungus, a bacterium or, in fact, any organism.