Roundup Ready variety expected to be first | Company is also researching drought hardiness and pest resistance
(Reuters) — Monsanto says it is making good progress developing a herbicide-tolerant wheat variety.
The company has long tried to bring to market a genetically modified wheat variety that tolerates glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.
“The grain industry and the wheat industry … have remained very interested and supportive of biotech advances,” said Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer.
“A wheat farmer is also generally a corn and soybean farmer and they understand the benefits of the technology.”
Fraley said Monsanto is still “several years away” from a GM wheat product launch.
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GM wheat is not commercially available despite several companies having researched it for a number of years.
Monsanto shelved an earlier version of an experimental herbicide-tolerant wheat in 2004 amid widespread market concern that foreign buyers would boycott U.S. wheat if it were genetically modified similar to corn and soybeans.
Controversy erupted again in May when the U.S. Department of Agriculture said an Oregon farmer had found the Roundup Ready wheat growing in his field, despite the fact the experimental grain should have been destroyed or stored away.
South Korea and Japan temporarily halted purchases of U.S. wheat after the announcement because of fears the unapproved GM wheat might have contaminated U.S. wheat supplies.
Farmers sued Monsanto, accusing it of failing to protect the U.S. wheat market from contamination by its unauthorized grain. The USDA said it determined the Oregon discovery was an isolated situation.
Monsanto has acknowledged continuing market hurdles but said attitudes were changing.
Officials said the herbicide-tolerant wheat performed well enough in field testing to move from the “proof of concept” phase to early development work.
The project is one of 29 that Mon-santo said made “phase advancements” across many research and development platforms.
The company said it is also progressing on work to make crops more drought hardy and more pest and disease resistant.
It is also working on a new combination of GM crops and herbicide chemistry to control weeds that have become resistant to its Roundup herbicide.
That new Xtend herbicide-tolerant cropping system incorporates a chemistry combination of glyphos-ate and dicamba.
Monsanto said it sees a global market opportunity of more than 100 million acres for its Xtend system. It is racing against its rivals to roll out systems that encourage farmers to use herbicide-tolerant crops with specific herbicides.
The company said it is also advancing research on improved tomatoes, lettuce and peppers.
As well, it is pushing ahead on what it calls biologicals, which uses microbials in ways that can make plants more resistant to disease and insects and improve yields.
Monsanto sees its work in biologicals helping improve the health of bees, which are crucial to the pollination of many crops.
