Plant breeding and genetic engineering for improved nitrogen efficiency

Plant-breeding objective: Improved take-up and utilisation of nitrogen

Plant researchers are working on ways of improving the take-up and utilisation of nitrogen by crop plants. One important approach is to optimize the plant’s metabolism in terms of nitrogen utilisation. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have introduced a maize gene into the genome of rice that makes the plants produce more biomass. This forces them to take up and utilise nitrogen more efficiently. These plants thrive even when there is not much nitrogen available.

US company Arcadia Biosciences, in which BASF holds a stake, has genetically modified oilseed rape and rice so that they produce more amino acids when nitrogen is scarce. In field trials in low-nitrogen soil, the modified plants took up more nitrogen and produced higher yields than the reference plants. The release experiments have been running for several years. The plan is to carry out similar genetic modifications on other crop plants, including wheat. Arcadia Biosciences works in international partnerships with private companies, foundations and government agricultural research institutes, including Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation....More @ Plant breeding and genetic engineering for improved nitrogen efficiency - Focus - gmo-safety.eu:

See also

Nitrogen Use Efficient Crops
http://www.arcadiabio.com/nitrogen
Arcadia's Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) technology produces plants with yields that are equivalent to conventional varieties but which require significantly less nitrogen fertilizer because they use it more efficiently. This technology has the potential to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer that is lost by farmers every year due to leaching into the air, soil and waterways.
In addition to environmental pressures, nitrogen costs can represent a significant portion of a farmer's input costs and can significantly impact farmer profitability. Arcadia believes that growers will have a powerful incentive to use its NUE technology because it makes economic sense for them to do so. In effect, NUE technology will help growers protect the environment while helping them run a more profitable business.
Arcadia has successfully transformed canola, Arabidopsis (model crop), tobacco (model crop) and rice with the NUE technology. In addition, our NUE technology has demonstrated significant yield improvements over the control variety using much less nitrogen fertilizer in field trials in five growing seasons.