Monsanto Reinvents Age-Old Breeding Game
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Jun 26, 4:08 PM (ET)
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD
ST. LOUIS (AP) - When Monsanto Co. (MON) developed its newest strain
of engineered soybeans, the company didn't use gene splicing. It used
math.
Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, has touted the Vistive
soybean as a scientific breakthrough because it is ready-made for
processing into healthier food oils that are low in trans fats.
But the secret recipe behind Vistive doesn't include genetic material
from bacteria or other organisms that Monsanto often uses to develop
seeds of what become pest-resistant plants.
Instead, there is an enormous numbers game, a complex system of data
analysis, gene screening and a transcontinental network of greenhouses
churning out seeds every day of the year in search of those with the
desired traits.
Although Monsanto is known around the world for making genetically
engineered plants - derided as "Frankenfood" by critics - it is
increasingly focused on breeding as a way to develop new crops.
"I think the thing that's emerging in our business, particularly in
the last year and I think in the next few years, is the importance of
breeding," Monsanto Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant told stock
analysts earlier this month.
The move could help Monsanto overcome hurdles in the international
market, where consumers are wary of genetically engineered crops, said
Bill Selesky, an analyst with Argus Research in New York.
"I think that if (genetic engineering) was something that you could
either begin removing, or make less intensive, I think the possibility
of getting more in sales from an overseas customer might be greater,"
Selesky said.
By many measures, the Vistive bean was developed through traditional
breeding - mating one plant with another, again and again, until the
offspring contain desired traits. But Monsanto applied a new twist to
the age-old process, drawing on techniques the company developed over
a decade of splicing genes.
The techniques - like using "gene markers" to spot promising seeds and
crunching the data in supercomputers - shaved at least three years off
the process of moving Vistive from the drawing board to the
marketplace, said Monsanto Vice President David Stark.
The Vistive bean traces its roots to 2002.
"I was out talking to the food industry about biotechnology, trying to
determine what they want from a company like Monsanto," Stark said.
"One of the things that was recurring was that, well, it looks like
trans fats could be really important."
Concern was mounting about trans fats contributing to unhealthy
cholesterol levels. It's made when oils are partially hydrogenated, a
process that stops oils from naturally degenerating. That results in a
longer shelf life.
Stark thought there was a solution - breed a soybean with oils that
are already stable enough to have a long shelf life. Cutting out
hydrogenation would mean cutting out trans fats.
Figuring out how to do that fell to the likes of Monsanto scientist
Pradip Das, who runs the company's crop analytics laboratory that
tests everything from the starch content of a corn kernel to the
genetic map of a cotton plant.
Das said scientists knew that a key reason soybean oil degenerates is
the presence of linolenic acid. Breeding beans low in the acid could
reduce the need for hydrogenation.
Genetic splicing wasn't necessary to derive such a bean. Researchers
at Iowa State University developed a "low-lin" soybean years ago,
according to the American Soybean Association. Such beans contain
about 1 percent linolenic acid in their oil as opposed to 8 percent in
standard beans.
But just because there was already a strain of low-lin beans didn't
mean Monsanto could simply sell it. Commercial soybean and corn plants
are like thoroughbred racehorses, with a long genetic history that
emphasizes high yields over all. This is crucial for big commodity
farmers, who typically operate with razor-thin profit margins and
large debt payments.
Melding the low-lin strain of soybean into Monsanto's line of
commercial crops could have taken many years, said Joe Byrum,
Monsanto's trait integration team leader.
Mixing a low-lin bean with a premium soybean produces offspring that
still have a lot of genetic "junk," as Byrum puts it. While the
low-lin trait might be there, the "junk" could yield a spindly plant
with skimpy bean production. The goal is to find that one-in-a-million
seed with the low-lin trait and nothing else but the premium genes.
"It's a needle in a haystack," Byrum said. "So if I have a tool that
can go in and pick out the needle every time, that's very efficient."
The tool Byrum uses to pick out the needle is called a genetic marker.
Byrum can take a leaf sample from a soybean sprout and instantly tell
if the seed contains the low-lin trait.
But breeding is a game of big numbers, Byrum said. It's a matter of
finding the right trait hundreds of thousands of times until the
offspring is narrowed down to the right cross - the soybean plant with
the low-lin trait and thoroughbred yield performance.
Monsanto has sped up this numbers game at its laboratory in Ankeny,
Iowa. The lab is a hub for the company's global chain of greenhouses.
Seeds are sprouted there daily, eliminating winter downtime, letting
Monsanto breed about three soybean generations annually, Byrum said.
Genetic samples are taken the moment a seed spouts - whether in the
Midwest, Puerto Rico or Hawaii - and then sent back to Ankeny. Byrum's
team analyzes them using genetic markers, then quickly crunching the
results on computers to determine which seeds are winners.
Byrum said his lab receives hundreds of thousands of seed samples at a
time, and must analyze them in about two weeks.
The right strain was found, and Vistive has been planted on about
500,000 acres in the United States this year, according to Monsanto.
After harvesting, the beans are kept separate from the general supply
and sent to food processing companies like Cargill Inc., which sells
the soybean oil as a premium product for a variety of foods - from
cookies to spicy mustard.
Grant told stock analysts the process that made Vistive could be used
to integrate any number of traits into Monsanto's line of crops.
"We're looking at accessing genetic diversity globally and using those
crosses to produce seeds that run faster, that perform better," he said.
---
On the Net:
Monsanto: _http://www.monsanto.com_ <http://www.monsanto.com/>
American Soybean Association: _http://www.soygrowers.com_
<http://www.soygrowers.com/>
Michelle Frain Muldoon
Director, Agriculture Programs/FarmServe Africa
OIC International, US-Headquarters
Tel.+1-215-842-0220 x 118 or +1-215-842-0860
Fax. +1-215-849-7033 or +1-215-842-3740
Email: mfrain@oici.org <mailto:mfrain@oici.org>
Website: www.oicinternational.org <http://www.oicinternational.org/>
For more information or to apply to the FarmServe Africa program, call
us, or email us at farmserve@oici.org <mailto:farmserve@oici.org>.
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