Transgene and Stress

The Cornell biologists showed stress tolerance by introducing the genes for trehalose synthesis into Indica rice varieties, which represent 80 percent of rice grown worldwide and include the widely eaten basmati rice. But the same strategy, they note, should also work in Japonica rice varieties, as well as in a range of other crops, including corn, wheat, millet, soybeans and sugar cane.

The researchers plan to report on their claims of increased food productivity from the resulting transgenic rice plants in a subsequent article. They say the trehalose gene technology will be placed in the public domain -- instead of being sold exclusively to commercial seed companies -- so that improved crop varieties can be cultivated in resource-poor parts of the world where the need is greatest.