Weeds

Managing or controlling weeds at scale is one of the great challenges for broad acre crops. Developing crops that were resistant to the major herbicides was one of the great innovations of GMO technologies. It enabled farmers to control weeds more efficiently with fewer chemicals. As a result, in countries that allow GMO traits, virtually all herbicides are sold in weed control systems that pair herbicide resistant seeds with the relevant herbicide chemistry.

Pests/Nematodes

Managing or controlling pests at scale is another of the great challenges of farming broad acre crops. One of the great breakthroughs in GMO technology was the development of seeds that were that genetically altered to express one or more proteins from bacteria that were toxic to pests. As a result, in countries that allow GMO traits, virtually all corn and soybean seeds are sold with an pest control system including these traits. Countries that banned GMO traits have never had the benefit of the efficiency of these pest systems.

Disease

Managing or controlling disease has been one of the big shortcomings of GMO technologies. The impact of GMO technologies on disease has been relatively limited. As a result, disease remains the largest cause of crop loss and yield in farming for virtually every crop after weeds. The approval of gene editing technologies will open one of the biggest opportunities in agriculture: disease resistant traits. The impact of these traits is expected to mirror the dramatic impact Productivity Traits for herbicide tolerance had on farming costs, yields and profitability. Trait fees for Productivity Traits associated with herbicide tolerance are believed to exceed $10 billion per year despite being limited to certain geographies and crops.

Nutrient Use Efficiency

Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE) is a major constraint for crop production in many global crops. Many crops require the addition of fertilizer for higher yields and this is a significant input cost. Unfortunately much of the nitrogen added is not taken up by the crop or when taken up not used efficiently.

NUE in crops can reduce the need for fertilizer and importantly can improve plant nitrogen uptake so less nitrogen ends up in soil or water runoff. Nitrogen runoff can cause environmental issues in our rivers and streams, so any reduction is important for making agriculture more sustainable.

We have licensed in initial NUE traits. We are beginning the editing process for these traits in Rice and Canola in 2023.

Agronomy

Many plants have structural or physiological weaknesses that make them vulnerable to their environment. Agronomic traits address these. The promise of gene editing is that the many agronomic targets have not been addressed using traditional breeding or GMO technology can now be tackled.

Cibus’ Pod Shatter Reduction trait in canola is a great example of an important agronomic trait. It is our first developed productivity trait. It changes canola farming by making the crops more resistant to high winds. In so doing, it avoids losses to pod shatter and enables farmers to control the time of harvest. These are the types of benefits you get from agronomic traits.

Our first trait to be transferred to a customer is expected to be in 2023. It is our Pod Shatter Reduction Trait in Canola/WOSR. We already have 10 customers whose elite germplasm we are editing for commercial launch. We expect the 1st commercial launch to occur in 2025 in North America.