Bayer and Pairwise’s Fulcrum™ have signed a five-year agreement to develop low-growing genetically modified (GM) corn, Future Farming reports September 1.
Pairwise and Bayer will focus on optimizing and improving low-growing GM corn. Developed corn is 30-40% lower than usual. It is believed that it will reduce losses from meteorological phenomena. Low-growing corn will allow for more precise application of fertilizers and plant protection products during the growing season.
“Pairwise’s proprietary tools allow targeted changes to be made virtually anywhere in the genome, which could lead to much-needed improvements in agriculture. The new genomic methods provide much faster and more accurate results than the traditional selection process. We can speed up the delivery of the solutions manufacturers need.”said Bob Reuters, director of Research and Development for Bayer’s Crop Science division.
The collaboration initially focuses on corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rapeseed to allow farmers to grow more with less on the same piece of land.
The companies have collaborated before. We have corn, which has 20% more rows of grains. Another result was a genetically modified soybean with increased resistance to Asian soybean rust and therefore less need for fungicides. Pairwise uses its own CRISPR-based tools for gene editing.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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