Seed Today - Q1 2009 - (Page 44)

Biotech But Not GM The tools of biotechnology are useful for developing non-transgenic traits in plant populations, it does not require regulatory oversight and can make these new varieties available sooner than if they had been developed using some other techniques. Details of the herbicide-tolerant wheat trait remain confidential. The herbicide being targeted has not been identified. Drought-Hardy Soybeans At the USDA-ARS Sandhills Research Station in North Carolina, geneticist Thomas Carter is developing soybean breeding lines that have improved tolerance to reduced moisture and flourish over a variety of geographic regions. For more than 25 years, he has been mining genetic diversity, found within the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection, to fuel his drought-tolerance research. Carter and his team have been transferring a slow-wilting characteristic from Asian landraces into U.S.-adapted varieties. Carter’s drought-hardy soybean lines are all non-transgenic. In the early 1980s, Carter first began studying the Asian soybean plant introductions housed on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana. He was looking for varieties that express the slow-wilting form of drought tolerance. After screening more than 2,500 exotic plant introductions from the germplasm collection, he has identified five that consistently stand up to drought. Carter and his team develop hundreds of new breeding lines each year. Five have stood out for further development and are now in validation trials across the South. Based on the results of these tests, the team will soon release advanced breeding lines that carry the slow-wilting trait and also show good yield potential when rainfall is plentiful. The slow-wilting lines yield four to eight bushels more than conventional varieties under drought conditions. Thomas Carter, Ph.D. (USDA photo by Thomas Carter) Anthracnose Stalk Rot Resistant Corn In February, the University of Delaware (UD) announced that it has reached a commercial agreement with DuPont Pioneer for a multi-year, corn disease resistance research collaboration with the goal of developing elite germplasm resistant to anthracnose stalk rot (ASR). The disease-resistance trait is the product of more than 20 years of plant breeding efforts by James A. Hawk, UD professor of plant and soil sciences who found the trait in tropical corn in the 1980s. Although its development was aided by molecular marker technology, the trait itself is non-transgenic. Hawk worked for more than 20 years to demonstrate that the gene could be bred into commercial germplasm and developed near-isogenic lines that facilitated the genetic characterization of ASR resistance. He and his associates then teamed up with DuPont scientists and cutting-edge technology was used to “fine map” the gene and develop molecular markers. Working under a previous collaborative research agreement between DuPont and the University, DuPont sci44 First Quarter 2009 entists are using those markers in high throughput genetic technology to move the gene into a wide variety of elite commercial germplasm. DuPont seed business, Pioneer Hi-Bred, now is marketing Pioneer® brand hybrid 34F26, the first corn hybrid in North America to carry the trait, which provides enhanced resistance to anthracnose stalk rot. Additional hybrids carrying the trait are being evaluated for 2010. Herbicide-Tolerant Wheat Arcadia Biosciences, Inc., an agricultural technology company in Davis, CA, and Targeted Growth, Inc., Seattle, WA have signed a research and commercial development agreement to develop herbicide-tolerant wheat trait being advanced by Arcadia. While Arcadia uses its advanced Tilling® genetic screening techologies to locate and identify desireable genetic material, the resulting traits are nontransgenic. In the case of herbicide-tolerant wheat, Arcadia has reached major milestones using an advanced screening technology and traditional breeding. Since the technique used to develop herbicide-tolerant wheat simply identifies genetic variation

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Seed Today - Q1 2009

Seed Today - Q1 2009 Contents Editor’s Notes Tri-State Seed LLC Blue Mountain Seed, Inc. Clearwater Seed According to ASTA Risa DeMasi Crystal Fricker AOSCA AOSA/SCST Oxbo International Hamer LLC Perten Insturments Taylor Products BinMaster Level Controls Dean Cavey Farmer Suicides in India: A Social Concern Unrelated to Bt Cotton Ad Index

Seed Today - Q1 2009

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