Source: Fresh Plaza – 13 August 2021

The trials conducted by a group of researchers at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, offer promising results in the search for Cavendish banana plants resistant to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense Tropical race 4 (TR4).

The researchers designed several lines of genetically modified Cavendish bananas with resistance to this fungus and, after a 3-year field test carried out in lands heavily infested with TR4, they concluded that a Cavendish line transformed with a gene taken from a wild banana grew completely free of TR4, while three other lines showed partial resistance…

Source: Bangkok Post – 26 August 2021

The Philippines said on Wednesday it has approved the commercial propagation of genetically modified Golden Rice after more than a decade of field tests that drew strong opposition from anti-GMO activists.

The Southeast Asian country, which is one of the world’s biggest rice importers, is the first nation to approve the Vitamin A-enriched grain for commercial cultivation, according to the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which helped develop Golden Rice.

SOURCE: Queensland Country Life – 27 August 2021

Using gene technology in livestock is brimming with potential, from using warthog genes to stop African swine flu killing pigs to ending the need to cull male chicks.

For more than a decade, the cropping sector has benefited from gene technology, which has been used to make species more drought or pest resistant, or more resistant to certain pesticides. But using the same technology in animals is still in its infancy. …

That could soon change, as researchers explore the practical applications of the technology and government policy slowly shifts.

Source: Seed Quest – 25 August 2021

UK research institute Rothamsted Research, a pioneer of GM crop trials since the 1990s, has been granted permission by Defra to run a series of field trials of wheat that has been genome edited.

The Hertfordshire-based experiments will be the first field trials of CRISPR edited wheat anywhere in the UK or Europe.

The wheat has been edited to reduce levels of the naturally occurring amino acid, asparagine, which is converted to the carcinogenic processing contaminant, acrylamide, when bread is baked or toasted.

The ultimate aim of the project is to produce ultra-low asparagine, non-GM wheat, says project leader Professor Nigel Halford…