By protecting roots biotech already protects crops against drought.

Biotech Corn Doing Better in Dry Indiana Soil

- Gary Truitt, Hoosier Ag Today, July 26, 2007 via Agbioview

Drought tolerance is something seed companies like to brag about in their seed books, but the kind of year that many Indiana growers have had really puts these hybrids to the test. Wayne Reinhardt, who farms in Wells County, said it has not been a good growing season, "Everything that could go wrong did go wrong." Several growers, attending a Syngenta sponsored educational field day event in Bluffton on Thursday, observed that biotech varieties were dealing with the drought stress better than conventional hybrids. "We planted some triple stack corn varieties and it had very little root damage, and very little insect damage and the conventional corn we planted just got hammered," observed Reinhardt.

Craig Gilles, who farms in Delaware and Jay Counties, also said some of his biotech hybrids performed better than others in very dry conditions, "Some of our AgriSure corn and some of our root worm corn is performing better, you can just see it has more drought tolerance to it." This part of Indiana has had some of the driest soil in the entire corn belt.

Wells County received rain on both Wednesday and Thursday and that has made a real difference. "I think we may be adding a few bushels of corn that we lost earlier in the month," said Reinhardt. Gilles noted that his soybeans were also responding to the recent rains although they were still showing signs of stress and were much shorter than normal.