Archive for June, 2020


INT - GM RICE RESEARCH FOR HYPERTENSION

Source: Science Focus – 24 June 2020

Researchers have lowered rats’ blood pressure by feeding them rice harvested from a plant genetically edited to produce medicine known to reduce hypertension… the research, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry noted that ACE Inhibitors derived from natural sources like milk, eggs and vegetables tend to have fewer side effects.

With that in mind they engineered a breed of rice plant to produce a range of these compounds along with a few chemicals known to relax blood vessels.


AUS - FROST-TOLERANT WHEAT RESEARCH IN WA

Source: ABC, WA Country Hour – 25 June 2020
Researchers using gene-editing technology to create frost-tolerant wheat say their work could save Australian farmers millions of dollars in lost productivity. 

Plant biotechnologists at Murdoch University are working on a two-year project using gene-editing technology to encourage frost tolerant proteins already present in wheat to become active during the coldest months of Australian winter.


AUS - GM COLOURED COTTONS IN THE PIPELINE

Source: ABC Landline – 27 June 2020
A few dozen petri dishes in a high-tech greenhouse in Canberra hold the potential to transform the global textiles industry. They contain plant tissue, which within days will grow into cotton plants: not standard, everyday white cotton, but ones with a dazzling array of colours. They are the product of CSIRO plant breeders … Colleen MacMillan leads the team of scientists who have cracked cotton’s molecular colour code, adding genes to make the plants produce a colour.


AUS - DESPITE DROUGHT COTTON INNOVATION SHINES

Cotton crop the smallest in 40 years, but tough times forge innovative new generation of growers

Source: ABC 7.30 Report – 17 June 2020

Cotton was once known as crop that required a lot of water and a lot of insecticide, but … Since the 1990s the cotton industry has strived become more efficient, and according to industry figures, cotton grown today in Australia uses using 48 per cent less water, 97 per cent less insecticide and 34 per cent less land.

The varieties of cotton grown today have been genetically modified to resist insects and allow the crop to be sprayed for weeds without killing the plant.


INT - GENE DISCOVERY TO BOOST NUTRIENT UPTAKE

Newly discovered plant gene could boost phosphorus intake
Source: University of Copenhagen – 16 June 2020
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have discovered an important gene in plants that could help agricultural crops collaborate better with underground fungi – providing them with wider root networks and helping them to absorb phosphorus.


INT - A GENE-EDITED FUTURE

Source: The Western Producer – 04 June 2020
Two and half decades after herbicide-resistant canola came onto the market, scientists have now adopted newer techniques to design crops. That’s because the new technologies are more efficient and partly because the strict regulations on GM crops have become a barrier to innovation. 

The beginning of the gene editing era and the demise of transgenic crops may have officially occurred in the middle of May [when] the United States Department of Agriculture announced its final rule to modernize biotechnology regulations for plant breeding.

In simple terms, the USDA will now treat gene editing the same as conventional plant breeding.


AUS - GM SAFFLOWER TRIALS

Source: ABC Landline

Australian scientists may have achieved a decades-long quest to find a plant-based alternative to petroleum-based engine oils, one that can be recycled, reused and breaks down in the environment.

Initial studies show safflower oil to be a superior lubricant that has lower emissions than conventional petroleum-based products, and reduces friction and wear on engine components.

The biofuel is produced from specially-bred safflower with high levels of oleic acid, the culmination of 18 years of work by CSIRO plant scientists.

The result is a variety which yields up to 93 per cent oil, the highest level of purity in any currently available plant oils.