Radish

Abstract Radish is an important vegetable grown globally. Through conventional breeding, the radish plant has changed from being an oilseed crop to a root vegetable exhibiting a wide diversity of shapes, sizes, and colors. Despite the success of breeding practices, the procedure of producing new varieties remains time consuming and labor intensive. Since the 1980s, researchers have devoted their attention toward producing transgenic radish by gene transfer technology to help accelerate the output of novel germplasms. The recalcitrance of various explants toward shoot production in culture has greatly delayed the onset of transgenic plants. This milestone was finally reached by immersing young inflorescences of radish into a suspension of Agrobacterium tumefaciens resulting in transformed seeds being produced from such hand‐pollinated plants. This technique, commonly referred to as ‘floral‐dip’, has been used to produce late‐flowering radishes through the expression of an antisense GIGANTEA ( GI ) gene. Indeed, the use of in planta methods for transferring agronomic traits into the crop has also seen drought‐tolerant radishes being created. Future research will focus on how recent improvements in tissue culture and in planta transformation systems have worked toward improving the medicinal value of the crop and its ability to be cultivated out of season.