Weed Control Products For Sorghum in Pipeline
By BILL SPIEGEL
Published: February, 2007 (Kansas Farmer)
FOR most grain sorghum producers, the No. 1 challenge is finding effective weed control options. A 2006 Kansas State University survey of sorghum producers, in fact, indicates that grass weed control options should be researchers’ top priority.
Take heart, sorghum fans: Promising developments are in the works, and you may see herbicide-tolerant grain sorghum hybrids by 2011.
The National Sorghum Producers has teamed up with a California company called Cibus to develop non-GMO sorghum that features natural resistance to herbicides.
Herbicide-tolerant trait
“We’ve generated a unique trait that provides tolerance to herbicide that can control grasses such as johnsongrass, shattercane and grassy sandbur,” says Larry Lambright, member of the National Grain Sorghum Producers Foundation.
“We think this technology will give producers the same ease of management and level of convenience they have come to enjoy with glyphosate-tolerant crops,” he adds.
The technology features Cibus’ patented Rapid Trait Development System, which uses a plant’s own DNA-repair machinery to allow the plant to make subtle changes in its DNA sequence. Simply put, a plant with RTDS uses molecules that create a structure in the plant that appears to be an error. These errors are repaired by natural enzymes, using the plant’s own DNA, explains Keith Walker, president of Cibus.
RTDS operates exclusively within the genome of the plant, just like normal plant breeding, and thus eliminates environmental and health risks as well as other unintended and unknown consequences associated with GMO crops.
“What we’ve learned is that small changes in those genes are responsible for what makes us different than one another,” Walker says.
“We’ve developed an ability, with a small molecule, to make corrections in the gene and make small changes in the gene repair organism. This allows us to create high-value traits in a wide array of applications.”
Natural resistance
Over time, a grain sorghum plant could naturally develop resistance to a specific herbicide compound. If that were to happen, it would be because a gene within the plant has made an error that the plant’s DNA cannot overcome. That error is the mechanism that allows herbicide resistance to take place.
“Rather than allow the randomness of nature, we go in and do it very precisely,” Walker says. “We know that weeds develop resistance. A mutation occurs, it isn’t repaired properly, and consequently, that gene now carries a mutation that allows it to survive despite the herbicide’s application. We are speeding up what could possibly occur in nature.”
No foreign DNA is introduced to the plant, thus allowing it to keep its non-GMO status, he adds. Another benefit of this is that the all-natural crops can go to market directly and won’t be subject to any GMO labeling requirements, Walker says.
The research partners have identified herbicide chemistries that can work with the Cibus RTDS technology, Lambright says. However, they have not yet identified what the herbicide options are, although researchers believe farmers will have access to the technology in five years.
Key Points
• Private and public research toward herbicide-resistant sorghum is promising.
• Growers may have herbicide-tolerant sorghum hybrids by 2011.
• Cooperative research by the NSP and Cibus focuses on non-GMO technology.
HIGH-TECH CONTROL:
Larry Lambright, technical committee member of the National Grain Sorghum Producers Foundation, says grassy weed control has become a priority for sorghum researchers. The group is collaborating with a California company to develop herbicide-tolerant sorghum.
NON-GMO METHOD:
Cibus uses technology called the Rapid Trait Development System to enable a plant’s own DNA-repair machinery to make subtle changes in the plant’s DNA sequence. RTDS allows Cibus to incorporate natural resistance to herbicide compounds into plants like sorghum, says Keith Walker, president.
