Seed Traits

A new innovation can completely reshape an industry – inspiring both optimism and debate. The development of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the 1980s ignited a buzz in the agricultural community with the potential for higher crop yields and better nutritional content, along with the reduction of herbicide and pesticide use. GE crops grew to play a significant role in the U.S., with more than 160 million acres of farmland used to produce GE crops in 2011. However, the development of new GE crops has recently slowed to a trickle due to litigation over field testing and deregulation. University of Minnesota researchers Esther McGinnis, Alan Smith and Mary Meyer set out to determine the cause of these litigation lulls responsible for slowing GE progress in the U.S....More

Pesticides derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis – widely known as Bt – have been important to farmers since the 1920s. Sixteen years ago, transgenic seed that produces insecticidal Bt proteins became available. Use of these transgenic Bt crops in the U.S. has reached 75% of cotton and 65% of corn acreage, while Bt pesticides are the most important insect control method available to organic farmers....More

Successfully controlling yield-limiting crop diseases comes down to analyzing field history and making the right management decisions for individual fields, says Kiersten Wise, a Purdue Extension plant pathologist. Once soil-borne crop diseases are present in a field, they rarely disappear. When the right weather conditions present themselves, diseases such as sudden death syndrome, root rot, white mold and seedling blight can substantially decrease crop yields....More

High corn prices are leading many growers to plant corn every year and to overuse pesticides and other bug-killing technology to maximize yields, researchers report. In many instances, pesticides are applied without scouting fields to see if they are needed, violating a bedrock principle of integrated pest management. The result is a biological diversity desert in many corn and soybean fields in the agricultural Midwest, and signs that the surviving insects are becoming resistant to several key bug-fighting tools now available to farmers....More