Genetic engineering: genetically modified crops for China’s fields

Genetically modified crops require large-scale and large-scale field trials before they can be used. The new guidelines state that developers of genetically modified crops that pose no environmental or food safety risk should only provide lab data and conduct small-scale field trials.

However, some criticize that the guidelines are vague. Applicable to crops in which genes have been removed or single nucleotides have been modified using genetic engineering. However, it is not clear whether they also apply to crops in which DNA sequences from other varieties of the same species have been introduced. “We need to confirm whether this is allowed,” says Chengcai Zhou, a rice geneticist at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, because it is important that the rules are clear.

The researchers are already planning to focus their work more on developing new crops that will be beneficial to farmers. For example, Jian-Kang Zhu, a plant molecular biologist at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, wants to develop genetically modified varieties that bring higher yields, better adaptability to climate change, and a better response to fertilizers. Others make applications for rice, which is particularly aromatic, and soybeans, which are high in oleic fatty acids, which can produce an oil low in saturated fat.

China’s research in genetically modified crops has already succeeded

Rotten-resistant gau wheat could be one of the first wheat approved. In 2014, a plant biologist and her team used gene editing to turn off the gene that makes wheat susceptible to a fungal disease, but they found that The changes also inhibited plant growth. However, one of their modified plants grew normally, and the researchers found that this was due to deleting a portion of the chromosome that did not suppress expression of the gene responsible for sugar production.