Field-grown transgenic wheat expressing the sunflower geneHaHB4significantly outyields the wild type

Abstract

Transgenic wheat expressing the sunflower transcription factor HaHB4 outyields the wild type by 6% when tested in the field during 9 years across 37 contrasting environments.

Drought Resistance by Engineering Plant Tissue-Specific Responses

“…Interestingly, HB4-expressing soybean has increased yield in both water-limited and well-watered conditions. As shown in extensive field trials, this same gene confers similar drought tolerance properties without yield penalties when transferred to bread wheat (Gonzalez et al, 2019), with the transgenic wheat having an unaltered quality and nutritional content when compared with its parental nontransgenic variety Cadenza (Ayala et al, 2019, Figure 2C). As such, it is likely that the HB4 cassette could confer drought resistance to other cereals.…”

“…These plants are currently on the market as Verdeca Drought Tolerance Soybeans HB4 ® . The same Hahb4 has also been transferred to bread wheat under the control of the constitutive promoter of maize ubiquitin 1 with similar promising results (Gonzalez et al, 2019;Ayala et al, 2019). (B) CspA, CspB: Maize plants overexpressing Escherichia coli CspB have high chlorophyll content, an improved photosynthetic rate, and reduced leaf area during vegetative growth.…”

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Study the Performance of Second-generation Genetically Modified Crops in Field Trials: A Case Study With Soybean and Wheat Carrying the Sunflower HaHB4 Transcription Factor

“…Described observations lead us to transform other species, particularly crops such as soybean and wheat, with constructs able to express HaHB4 (González et al, 2019;Ribichich et al, 2020). Such GM crops expressing HaHB4 outyielded their wildtype counterparts in a network of field trials that included a broad range of growing conditions, particularly in water balance and air temperature during critical reproductive stages (González et al, 2019;Ribichich et al, 2020). Yield data were supported by positive trends in its main physiological determinants (total biomass and biomass partitioning) as well as in floret fertility and grain numbers.…”

“…Behind this comparative approach that includes evaluation of different crop aspects (agronomic, reproductive, environmental, compositional, nutritional, etc. ), there is a long and thorough process that involves measuring more than 80 parameters in which equivalence to the non-GM counterpart needs to be verified (Ayala et al, 2019;González et al, 2019).…”

“…Blue regions with dashed border lines represent the dataset range of the transgenic genotypes. Spectra were obtained as described in Supplementary File 1 whereas details of experiments are in Supplementary Table 1 and in González et al (2019). Transgenic is cultivar IND-00412-7 (HB), wild-type is cultivar Cadenza (CD), and commercial cultivar is Baguette Premium 11 (BP11).…”