plant breeding

Researchers at the Philippine Rice Research Institute have identified 25 new breeding lines of rice that tolerate higher temperatures than are considered ideal for current varieties.

The rector of Wageningen University in the Netherlands will become director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on June 1. Martin Kropff will succeed Thomas Lumpkin, who has been CIMMYT chief since 2008.

The "slow atrophy of public funding" for plant-breeding programs "means that farmers have been left with fewer and fewer seed choices over the years and are ill-prepared to meet 21st Century needs," says the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Cosmic Crisp is a new variety of apple developed by Washington State University and should appear in orchards in 2017, says the Associated Press.

Virginia Quarterly Review, in an article titled "Linux for Lettuce," delves into the arguments over open-source seeds available to anyone and the practice of some seed companies to patent their products. The story opens with cases of plant breeders who independently developed plant varieties or shared their results with others but later learned a company had patented the trait they had developed.

Plants that grow well often fare poorly in heat or drought, while those that seem to shrug off hot or dry weather often grow slowly; neither type is ideal for crops. Now a Purdue plant scientist “has found the switch that creates that antagonism, opening opportunities to develop plants that exhibit both characteristics,” said the university.