If climate change is the new normal, farmers in some regions of the world will have to get used to fighting mold and mildew. For wheat growers in particular, fungal blights are already a big problem—and only expected to worsen as weather patterns change. Fungal pathogens are advancing northwards at about 7 kilometers per year on average, worldwide.
Scientists around the world have been trying to make wheat, the most common crop on the planet, able to survive fungal diseases by introducing disease-resistant genes, but in the past, it has been difficult to add more than two or three of these genes at a time.
Enter the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS). On June 14, the ARS published a pilot study on an innovative technology called GAANTRY (Gene Assembly in Agrobacterium by Nucleic acid Transfer using Recombinase technologY) that can insert a “stack” of multiple genes simultaneously into plants.
Roger ...
