A database that features the vast amount of research and development on biotech crops being conducted by public sector institutions and research centers around the world is now available. The database produced by CropLife International features the crops being developed in different countries, including the traits for each crop. The …
Researchers from Pennsylvania State University have fooled soybean plants into thinking they were under attack by temporarily silencing the expression of a critical gene. After selectively cross breeding those plants with the original stock, the progeny “remember” the stress-induced responses and become more vigorous, resilient, and productive. This epigenetic reprogramming …
For the first time ever, an international team of scientists from Brazil, the United States, and Germany has created a new crop from a wild plant within a single generation using the modern genome editing process CRISPR-Cas9. The team used Solanum pimpinellifolium as the parent plant species, a wild tomato …
Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and… groundcherries? A little-known fruit about the size of a marble could become agriculture’s next big berry crop. To prepare the groundcherry (Physalis pruinosa) for mainstream farming, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Zachary Lippman, Joyce Van Eck at the Boyce Thompson Institute, and colleagues combined genomics …
Potato’s tetraploid genome requires a more powerful genome editing system. Scientist Hiroaki Kusano of Tokyo University of Science and colleagues apply the translational enhancer dMac3 to the Cas9 expression vector to increase the amount of Cas9 proteins produced inside potato cells. dMac3 is a 161-bp region of the OsMac3 mRNA, …
Rice plants engineered to have fewer stomata—tiny openings used for gas exchange—are more tolerant to drought and resilient to future climate change, a new study has revealed. Scientists from the University of Sheffield have discovered that engineering a high-yielding rice cultivar to have reduced stomatal density, helps the crop to …
Forget vegetables with dull colors and fuzzy skin or fruits that lack of flavor—the produce aisle of the future could offer plant products that are designed for creative cooks and fussy eaters. In a review article published July in the journal Trends in Plant Science, two food researchers describe how …
Weed management is necessary to grow strong plants and quality fruit, as the watermelon plants compete with weeds for moisture and nutrients in the soil. Most of the registered herbicides are for pre-emergence or pre-transplant applications to the crop and weeds. Watermelon plants have very limited tolerances to most herbicides. …
Use of the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 could help to breed cacao trees that exhibit desirable traits such as enhanced resistance to diseases, according to Pennsylvania State plant scientists. The cacao tree, which grows in tropical regions, produces the cocoa beans that are the raw material of chocolate. Reliable productivity …
The precise substitution of an existing allele in crop species with an elite allele is a major goal in plant breeding. Single nucleotide polymorphism in the NRT1.1B gene between the indica and japonica subspecies in rice (Oryza sativa) is responsible for improved Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). A team of researchers …
