Development of seedless tomatoes based on parthenocarpy and the application of genome editing with CRISPR/Cas9

Parthenocarpy in horticultural crops is an important trait of considerable importance for various industries related to agriculture as well as food quality. A team of scientists led by Risa Ueta of the Tokushima University in Japan developed a strategy for breeding of parthenocarpy in tomato based on the CRISPR/Cas9 genome …

Plant geneticists develop a new application of CRISPR to break yield barriers in crops

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), USA have harnessed the still untapped power of genome editing to improve agricultural crops. Using tomato as an example, they have mobilized CRISPR/Cas9 technology to rapidly generate variants of the plant that display a broad continuum of three separate, agriculturally important traits: fruit …

New oat variety helps reduce cholesterol

Researchers from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) have created a new oat variety with high yield and increased beta glucan content. The new Kowari variety is of a dwarf-type, with an increased content of beta-glucan compared to other varieties. Beta glucans are natural sugar compounds that help …

A knockout mutation of SaF /SaM in rice overcomes male sterility in hybrids between indica and japonica

Development of hybrids between indica and japonica usually leads to male-sterile plants, making it difficult to use the heterosis effect for breeding. The locus Sa consists of two adjacent SaF and SaM genes that interact with each other and lead to pollen abortion in plants bearing the japonica allele in …

Multisite genome editing in cotton

In a recent study published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal, a team of Chinese researchers with Pengcheng Wang as a leading author from the Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei, China, presented a successful attempt to simultaneously edit several loci in the genome of cotton. For this purpose, the scientists have …

CRISP/Cas9 induced mutations in GmFT2a lead to delayed flowering in soybean (Glycine max)

Double-cropped soybean (Glycine max) is often associated with restricted vegetative growth before flowering. This problem could be overcome by delaying the flowering of the plants. Recently a team of Chinese scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences with Yupeng Cai as a leading researcher published a paper in Plant …