On the Horizon: Corn Engineered To Survive Drought

It has been a summer of withered crops and wildfires, the U.S.'s driest in the last fifty years, during which 55 percent of the U.S. has experienced a drought. And of the land dedicated to corn production, 87 percent has been dry. Over at Technology Review, Jessica Leber wrote about an engineering solution to the problem of parched corn: seeds bred or genetically enhanced to resist drought, some of which have been tested this summer and will be sold by three big seed companies next year. Leber's story features Syngenta's Agrisure Artesian, a type of corn that was bred, rather than genetically modified, to resist drought. It was sold in limited quantities this year. But Syngenta, along with DuPont and Monsanto, is also trying to figure out what kinds of genetic enhancements might help corn hold onto water better. This summer, Monsanto is testing Droughtgard, a breed of corn that ...