Abstract: Provided are methods for the production of a stress tolerant plant or precursor thereof. The methods comprise (i) subjecting one or more parental plants to one or more stress conditions selected from unfavourable conditions relating to relative humidity, water availability, periodic drought, nutrients, sunlight, wind, temperature, pH, exogenous chemicals, chemical toxins such as salt, herbivory, prophylactic chemicals, fertilizers, pathogen attack such as bacterial, fungal, or virus infection and pest infestation; and (ii) generating offspring from said one or more parental plants.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for detecting and/or quantifying the presence of, and relative abundance of, methylated nucleic acid bases within double-stranded nucleic acid by i) contacting a double-stranded nucleic acid sample with an intercalating fluorescent dye when bound to the nucleic acid sample fluoresces when exposed to light of a wavelength capable of causing the dye to fluoresce; 2) altering the hybridisation conditions of the solution containing the double-stranded nucleic acid-dye complex such that dissociation of the two strands of the said nucleic acid-dye complex occurs at a rate that permits progressive release of the dye 3) and monitoring the difference in fluorescence, and uses thereof.

Abstract: The present invention relates to haploid oil palm plants and homozygous doubled haploid oil palm plants. The invention also relates to methods for producing and selecting haploid and doubled haploid plants. More particularly, but not exclusively, the method may be used for selecting haploid and doubled haploid oil palm plants. Haploid and doubled haploid plants are selected by a large-scale screening based on a combination of the phenotype with the use of molecular methods combined with flow cytometry techniques to identify haploid and doubled haploid plants. More particularly, a method for selecting haploid and doubled haploid plants is described comprising: (a) germinating seeds; (b) selecting seedlings with atypical phenotype; (c) assessing heterozygosity using markers; (d) isolating cells from the seedlings and determining the DNA content of the cells; and (e) isolating and purifying the DNA and using defined molecular markers to characterise the genotype of the plant.