text: Biolistics has proven to be a versatile method of genetic modification and it is generally preferred to engineer transformation-resistant crops, such as cereals. Notably, Bt maize is a product of biolistics. Plastid transformation has also seen great success with particle bombardment when compared to other current techniques, such as Agrobacterium mediated transformation, which have difficulty targeting the vector to and stably expressing in the chloroplast. In addition, there are no reports of a chloroplast silencing a transgene inserted with a gene gun. Additionally, with only one firing of a gene gun, a skilled technician can generate two transformed organisms in certain species. This technology has even allowed for modification of specific tissues in situ, although this is likely to damage large numbers of cells and transform only some, rather than all, cells of the tissue.