FruitsEmbrapa pinpoints a banana gene that could be edited to resist Panama disease
Researchers in Bahia found the susceptibility gene MusaDMR6 surges after Fusarium infection, making it a candidate target for breeding or CRISPR editing.
Tags
Gene editing
Fruits
CropsIndia's seed industry calls for one framework and faster approval of new varieties and traits
The Federation of Seed Industry of India says quicker, science-based approvals for varieties, GM traits and genome editing are needed to lift cotton, oilseed and pulse yields and cut imports.
VegetablesUK gives gene-edited vitamin D tomato a marketing notice under precision breeding law
A John Innes Centre tomato edited to accumulate provitamin D3 has been entered on England's precision breeding register, though it still needs Food Standards Agency approval before sale.
FruitsFlorida growers plant CRISPR-edited rootstock against citrus greening as the state's crop shrinks from 300 million boxes to 15 million
Tampa-based Soilcea's CarriCea T1 rootstock, approved by the EPA this year, keeps a tree's immune system working; in a test field the edited trees are taller and greener, but the fruit is years away.
Crops
Biographica and Hudson River join forces to take crop traits from gene target to edited variety
A UK gene-discovery startup and a Dutch genome-editing specialist will offer breeders a single route from trait problem to edited plant, starting with tomatoes.
AgrotechJapanese team uses CRISPR to knock down the onion enzyme that makes eyes water
Editing the lachrymatory factor synthase gene cut enzyme activity to under 40 percent of controls in leaves and bulbs, but the edited plants were stunted and set no seed, so a commercial low-tear onion is still some way off.
Crops
Deeper-rooted soybeans go into field trials as a hedge against drought and a carbon sink
Salk Institute scientists, backed by an $18 million Bezos Earth Fund grant, are testing gene-edited soybeans with roots that grow straight down at sites in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, hoping they can reach water in droughts and store an extra tonne of carbon dioxide per hectare a year.
Crops
Spearhead Bio raises $1.62m seed round for large-DNA crop gene editing
Danforth Center spinout Spearhead Bio has closed an oversubscribed $1.62 million seed round for its TAHITI platform, which pairs transposable elements with CRISPR to insert or replace large pieces of DNA precisely in crop genomes.
Crops
Purdue and UC Davis find the 'accelerator pedal' that makes soybeans form more nodules
A study in PNAS led by Jianxin Ma and Blake Meyers shows a root peptide travelling up the xylem to regulate a shoot microRNA that returns to the roots to suppress a gene and boost nodulation under low nitrogen; the mechanism exists in soybean and common bean but not in model legumes, and a gene-edit
Crops
Gene-edited soya flowers early enough for Britain in Corteva's Wellesbourne field trial
Crispr-edited soya plants at Corteva's Warwickshire trial site set pods weeks ahead of the late-maturing US lines they were bred from, an advance the company says could give Britain a home-grown protein break crop, if early maturity can be combined with yield and if precision-breeding rules allow i
Crops
Pairwise licenses CRISPR tools to 25 companies as editing spreads beyond corn and soy
Gene-editing company Pairwise says licensing of its Fulcrum CRISPR platform has jumped in the past 12 to 18 months, with 25 licensees working across more than 30 species from cassava, cacao and yam to insects, microbes and livestock.