GM/Biotech Crops Report – December 2017

Increasingly saline soils are a concern world-wide but scientists in China have developed varieties of rice that can tolerate saline soils. Two hundred commercially viable varieties are being tested with some very encouraging yield results. More

Pic Source: Amanda W

The Sainsbury laboratory in Norwich has introduced a gene from wild potato into the variety Maris Piper with the result that it is now resistant to blight. Their next step is to try to make them less prone to bruising – a trait tat is already available in some potato varieties grown commercially in America.  More

Pic Source: Alan Parkinson

CRISPR-Cas9 editing has transformed gene editing but now a new system CRISPR-Cas13 will allow targeting of specific RNA areas and nucleotides with even temporary editing changes possible. More

Pic Source: Karl Ludwig Poggemann

Dutch scientists have sequenced the genome of tulips in the expectation that this will enable them to develop better tulips faster. This is a notable achievement because the tulip genome in 11 times larger than the human genome. More

Pic Source: Liz West

Mung beans are an important source of protein in South-east Asia but growth is limited because of the predominance of saline soils in that area. Now researchers have developed salt-tolerant mung beans by expressing a gene from Arabidopsis in the plant and co-incidentally this also improves herbicide tolerance.
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Pic Source: Frost Museum

Wageningen University have identified a naturally-occurring strain of Thale Cress that can cope with higher light levels and the system of genes that allows it to do this are present in all plants. It suggests that photosynthetic efficiency could be improved using natural genetic variation which promises more yield from lower soil, water and nutrient inputs. A few months ago we reported a similar claim for enhanced wheat yields from Rothamsted.  More

Pic Source: Tico

Many crop plants have been developed with enhanced vitamin A content and Golden rice was probably the first of these. Now Ohio State University has achieved this enhancement in potatoes and it also gives improved vitamin E content.  More

Pic Source: Sam Chills

I know I should soak my rice before cooking it to reduce the arsenic content but apparently it can also contain a lot of cadmium and in areas where rice is the main source of carbohydrates cadmium poisoning is a serious risk. Now the Hunan Hybrid Rice research Centre has used CRISPR-Cas9 editing to knock out one of the metal transport genes in rice. It lowers the cadmium content of the grains but can the crop still get the copper, boron, manganese and magnesium that it needs? More

Pic Source: Gigijin

Commercial bananas are all derived from the same original stock derived from original plants held at Chatsworth! This lack of genetic diversity has always carried the risk of an epidemic of some disease devastating the whole crop. Of greatest threat was Panama disease, a form of Fusarium wilt disease. Now researchers in Queensland have engineered a strain of the crop that is resistant to this threat by taking a gene from wild bananas and inserting it in the Cavendish line:  More

Pic Source: Silva Chuva

Stem rust is a devastating disease of wheat grown in Africa but splicing a gene from tomatoes into the genome of the wheat seems to have conferred resistance. This feat was achieved by the University of California and may well have halted a world-wide epidemic of stem rust in wheat. More

Pic Source: Tony

Verticillium wilts are soil-borne diseases that affect many plants and they are difficult to control. Tomatoes have a surface immune receptor (VE1) that recognises some strains of Verticillium and switches on an immune response. Now the gene for this receptor has been spliced in to tobacco and cotton with the result that these plants now also recognise the disease and switch on their own immune response systems.  More

Pic Source:Ryan & Sarah Deeds