Today, many criminal cases are resorting to techniques used in the scientific world to accumulate evidence against the accused. The use of science to answer questions relevant to the legal system is termed Forensics, and has branched into the many specialties seen in the scientific world. These include anthropology, ballistics, bloodstain analysis, botany, DNA fingerprinting, economic crime, entomology, and the list goes on. The area of forensic botany is a relatively new and untouched specialty. The first criminal investigation that included the analysis of plant material wasn't until 1935 and today, few investigators rely on the science of plant material, although it is becoming more common.

Often, a plant pathologist is brought in to perform analysis on the evidence; however, findings are subjected to individual training and techniques. Our studies are trying to apply molecular techniques to forensic botany to provide a more reliable analysis. In 1993, two research scientists discovered a technique to fingerprint a genome without knowing any specifics of that particular genome. This technique, titled amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP), combines the previous techniques of restriction digests and PCR. Using gel electrophoresis, a genomic fingerprint is created and comparisons can then be made between species and individuals. We are applying AFLP techniques to determine if cultivars and individual plants of the same species have different fingerprints. Providing that they do, this technique can then be applied to connect suspects to the crime scene and/or victims.