DURHAM - BASF’s announcement this week that it was planning to re-locate its choice plant science headquarters to the Research Triangle Park was not a complete surprise to some local officials, who see the area as a hub for businesses in the agricultural biotechnology sector. Paul Ulanch, director of biotechnology crop development at the...

An old bug might have learned a new trick in Illinois’ corn fields, outsmarting a strain of corn genetically engineered to produce its own insecticide. It’s called the Western corn rootworm. And while farmers have battled the pest for decades, Midwestern crop scientists are now scrambling to figure out whether the larvae and adult bugs have developed into a super-bug, ca...

Research involving scientists at The University of Nottingham has taken us a step closer to breeding hardier crops that can better adapt to different environmental conditions and fight off attack from parasites. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the researchers h...

MANILA, Philippines - The number of genetically-modified (GM) crops with stacked traits will increase in time as more farmers opt for them, beginning with corn. This prediction was made by Dr. Clarito Barron, director of the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), after noting that 70 percent of farmers using GM corn are propagating crops with double ...

One of America's most widely planted crops - a genetically engineered corn plant that makes its own insecticide - may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected. The United States food supply is not in any immediate danger because the problem remains isolated. But...

THE Philippines is the first and only country in Asia to grow a major gene-modified or biotech crop for food, feed, and processing: Bt corn MON 810 approved for commercialization in 2002. It is also the first country in Southeast Asia to implement a regulatory system for gene-modified crops which started in 1990. Next to rice, corn is the second most important crop in...

Islamabad - Cotton Commissioner (CC) Dr.Khaild Abdullah has said that Cotton stainer was a future threat to Pakistan because when a cropping system is shifted to a better one or new crop introduced may lead to a serous problem. He told reporters Cotton Commissioner of Textile Ministry Dr.Khaild Abdullah said that Shifting from Desi cotton to A...

INDIANAPOLIS & WILMINGTON, N.C. - Dow AgroSciences LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, and BioDuro, a PPD Company, announced a three-year, multi-program discovery research agreement to generate novel molecules for synthesizing and testing fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides across a var...

Chinese researchers at Nanjing University have found small segments of rice ribonucleic acid (called microRNA or miRNA for its tiny size) in the blood and organs of people who eat conventional rice. The study does not address how the assimilation of plant RNA into human bodies could affect the debate over the next generation of genetically mo...

An article in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Integrated Pest Management refutes claims by Greenpeace Germany that the western bean cutworm, Striacosta albicosta, is "a new plant pest" that was "caused by genetically engineered corn." The Greenpeace Germany report, which was ...

LUDWIGSHAFEN, GERMANY - BASF and COFCO Tunhe, one of the world’s largest tomato producers and processors headquartered in Beijing, China, have entered a strategic cooperation to develop and enhance sustainable tomato cultivation in China. The main goal is to design a production system that address...

A specific gene in corn seems to confer resistance to three important leaf diseases, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists and their university colleagues. This discovery, published in 2011 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could potentially help plant breeders build disease-resistance traits into future ...

WA-BASED researchers have heralded the first year of genetically modified barley trials a success. The trials, held at Corrigin in the state’s central wheat belt, are looking at potential salt-tolerant varieties, and are being conducted by the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) ACPFG researcher Stuart Roy said that in low salt areas, GM barl...

Ghent, Belgium and Ludwigshafen, Germany - The VIB Department for Plant Systems Biology at Ghent University and BASF Plant Science announced a cooperation agreement in plant biotechnology. Together they will develop a novel technology to identify genes and gene networks that control crop yield. The proj...

Every night millions of people go to bed hungry. New genetic technology can help us feed the world by making inedible seeds more edible, researchers say. There are roughly about a quarter of a million plant species known on Earth. But we only eat between 5,000 and 10,000 of them. Many are poisonous to us...

Monsanto has announced it will scrap plans to sell an insect-resistant maize in France, the second move in a week by biotech company to retreat from the genetically modified foods market in Europe. Monsanto’s announcement came a week after Germany’s BASF said it would suspend the development of GM crops in Europe and move its plant...