Seed giants like Monsanto argue that this approach encourages innovation by allowing companies to protect the investment of time and money they put into developing new plant varieties.
Reproductive barriers are a major obstacle in plant breeding, so understanding how these barriers form may open new avenues for developing new plant varieties.
University of Minnesota geneticist Dan Voytas develops new plants using genetic engineering.
The protection provided by plant patents under title 35, United States Code, dating back to 1930, has historically benefited American agriculture and horticulture and the public by providing an incentive for breeders to develop new plant varieties.
Plant biotechnology has a role in addressing global needs for food, fiber and fuel, by developing new crop varieties with increased pest resistance, biofortification, and abiotic stress tolerance.
Some of these genes and their proteins may potentially serve as targets for developing new modes of plant resistance to fungi by impeding fungal development.
These ranged from designing the world's first fusion power plant, to developing new metrics by which to measure the effects of radiation damage, to modeling the many phases of coolant inside of a nuclear power plant.
After a week of talks, delegates said, the United States agreed publicly for the first time to mandatory payments by plant breeders and geneticists developing new crop varieties, in return for access to public seed banks, which lend crop seeds at no charge.
Researchers are developing new methods for cultivating a plant called jatropha.
The spin-offs from our scientific knowledge include defining new drug targets, designing new drugs with high target specificity, developing disease resistant plants, and finally developing new nanotechnologies.
