ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER RESEARCH Depending on the specific tools and methods, the term “genetic modification” has created new opportunities in the lab and in the field, while also fuelling anxiety about advancing plant breeding beyond agriculture. As each new gene-altering tool or process emerges, science identifies pathways to advance the research pipeline and find answers to everything from environmental stresses to pest resistance. Weed biotypes, insects, and disease pathogens adapt by developing resistance, a complex process despite innovations used to develop new hybrids, varieties, and chemical products. Gene modification, in the broadest terms, has advanced far beyond selective breeding. Transgenics arrived in the 1990s with RNAi (RNA interference) and CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) technologies developed in the mid-2000s. Since then, RNAi has helped improve resistance to corn rootworm. At the same time, CRISPR has established resistance to powdery mildew in Chinese wheat and Indian rice varieties that can withstand water scarcity and salinity stress. WHERE IS THIS LEADING? A Farm Progress story published last April cited the use of gene editing to speed the development of disease resistance, citing sources with Corteva Agriscience. If current work goes well, a company representative said corn growers in the U.S. could see disease-resistant hybrids as standard on their farms in the early 2030s. That’s a relatively short span given the enormous strides science has made in less than a decade. Gene editing has been likened to “correcting a spelling mistake” within DNA strands, and although it’s more complicated, its potential to solve many of agriculture’s pest challenges is undeniable. Where transgenics introduced genetic material from one species to another and created resistance to specific herbicides and insect species, gene editing allows for quicker identification and targeting of genes within the plant that can deliver beneficial attributes like disease resistance. “Old-school transgenic (GMO) technology meant that introducing a new trait took a decade and cost millions in regulatory approvals,” says Dr. Rajagopal Subramanian, a scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). “It was a high-stakes, ‘one-and-done’ bet, and if a fungus or virus evolved past that defence, breeders were back to square one.” In principle, CRISPR is fully programmable. When a pathogen evolves and overcomes a crop’s resistance, scientists can redesign what are known as “guide RNAs” to activate on alternate pathways or splice a backup gene directly into a top-performing commercial hybrid or variety. There’s no need to start over. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Altoya_Pub_Print.pdf 1 2026-07-22 13:31:10 “In effect, it turns plant breeding into something like a software update system (on a computer), letting us stay a step ahead in the evolutionary arms race against disease,” says Subramanian. ONE STEP FORWARD … Although the technology presents opportunities now and into the future that were not considered possible 20 or 30 years ago, barriers remain to advancing certain crops, specifically wheat. As a hexaploid, wheat carries three related genomes with three or more copies of any given gene. As with the software analogy, a “patch” is often installed across all homoeologous copies to have a phenotypic response. That means knocking out or editing one copy may be masked by the redundant features in the others. In the end, notes Subramanian, updating a genome as complex as wheat requires genome-aware engineering instead of a simple “find-and-replace” process. It also means corn and soybeans offer some of the more active near-term targets; soybeans because of their record for “knocking out the weakness” type of edits instead of adding new resistance gene types. Both crops also have single- or low-copy susceptibility versus the hexaploid genome found in wheat. continued on page 16
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