News & Events

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is currently getting ready for the deployment of Golden Rice to farmers by ramping up its seed production operations. Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary William Dar led the ceremonial handover of the Golden Rice seeds to seed growers and producers during his visit to PhilRice Central Experiment Station in the Science City of Muñoz in the province of Nueva Ecija on May 6, 2022.

The online event is the first of three webinars organized to raise public awareness about gene drive technology along with its applications, benefits, risks, and impact through a deeper and more frequent engagement. The first webinar will provide participants with an introduction to different types of gene drives and how guidance and frameworks need to be able to adapt to these differences. It is open to the general public who will have the chance to participate in an open forum and ask questions directly to the resource speakers.

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is used as a non-host of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) (family Geminiviridae, genus Begomovirus) in many studies (Ghanim and Czosnek 2000; Legarrea et al. 2015; Zeidan and Czosnek 1991), but only one reports methods used to determine host-status (Sinisterra et al. 2005), and there is one contradictory report from China stating cotton is a host of TYLCV (Li et al. 2014). In October 2018, cotton was screened for the presence of begomoviruses in Elmore, Escambia and Macon Counties, AL, where infestations of its whitefly vector (Bemisia tabaci Genn.) occurred in August.

Activist Cécile Ndjebet, of Cameroon, today won the 2022 Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to preserving forests and improving the lives of people who depend on them. Presented by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), which is chaired by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the award was conferred at a ceremony during the XV World Forestry Congress in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

World food commodity prices decreased in April after a large jump the previous month, led by modest declines in the prices of vegetable oils and cereals, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported today. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 158.5 points in April 2022, down 0.8 percent from the all-time high reached in March. The Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of commonly-traded food commodities, remained 29.8 percent higher than in April 2021.

Cucumis melo L. is an economically important crop, the production of which is threatened by the prevalence of melon powdery mildew (PM) infections. We herein utilized the MR-1 (P₁; resistant to PM) and M4-7 (P₂; susceptible to PM) accessions to assess the heritability of PM (race 1) resistance in these melon plants. PM resistance in MR-1 leaves was linked to a dominant gene (CmPMRl), whereas stem resistance was under the control of a recessive gene (CmPMrs),

Using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, scientists at Rothamsted Research have found a way to switch on a dormant gene without inserting foreign DNA and creating a genetically modified organism (GMO). This is the first demonstration of gene editing ‘deletion' approach in any organism, with previous methods not managing this feat in such a precise and predictable way. Professor Peter Eastmond and colleagues used CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing – which is usually used to switch genes off – to bring the gene in question under the control of an existing gene promoter,

Experts at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) successfully developed a technique to improve the efficiency of gene editing using CRISPR-Cas9 while decreasing DNA deletion sizes. This technique, reported in Nucleic Acids Research, is a vital step in the development of gene therapies for the treatment of genetic diseases. CRISPR-Cas9 is the most used gene editing technique and has a wide range of potential applications.

The SoyaGen project was a collaborative endeavor involving Canadian soybean researchers and breeders from academia and the private sector as well as international collaborators. Its aims were to develop genomics-derived solutions to real-world challenges faced by breeders. Based on the needs expressed by the stakeholders, the research efforts were focused on maximizing realized yield through optimization of maturity and improved disease resistance.

The nature of social media and calls for transparency make consumer product demands more relevant as gene-edited foods become increasingly popular. However, the information available about the technology is limited and can sometimes be incorrect. Consumers must then have access to the right information to be well-educated about this new food technology to make sound decisions.

The European Commission has opened a 12-week public consultation on future EU legislation for plants produced using new genomic techniques (NGTs). The consultation, which began on April 29, 2022, will run until July 22, 2022, and calls on civil society, public authorities, business operators, and everyone interested to provide their views on NGTs for plants.

Due to global warming, high temperature is a significant environmental stress for rice production. Rice (Oryza sativa L.), one of the most crucial cereal crops, is also seriously devastated by Magnaporthe oryzae. Therefore, it is essential to breed new rice cultivars with blast and heat tolerance. Although progress had been made in QTL mapping and RNA-seq analysis in rice in response to blast and heat stresses, there are few reports on simultaneously mining blast-resistant and heat-tolerant genes.