Optimizing the world's beet yield with CRISPR / Cas9 technology

Published 2020년 11월 1일

Tridge summary

The sugar industry continues to grow, with an estimated 207 million tons of sugar to be produced in the 2021-2022 season, a 26% increase from ten years prior. Eighty percent of this sugar is produced from sugar cane, while 20% is from beet sugar. With climate change, there is a need to adapt, and beet seed companies are selecting varieties that are profitable and resistant to heat stress and environmental drought. Advanced methods such as cell and tissue culture, marker-assisted selection, genetic engineering, digital phenotyping, and bioinformatics are being used to develop new varieties of sugar beet. There is also a need to develop resistant plant species to geminivirus diseases, such as the BCTV, which have spread from Iran to Turkey and could threaten European crops. CRISPR technology is being used to transfer gRNAs to healthy crop leaves to recognize specific sequences of the Iranian virus, potentially providing viral resistance to sugar beet.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

The sugar industry has not stopped growing in recent decades. Each year, approximately 160 million tons of sugar are produced, moving about 70,000 million dollars worldwide, according to the FAO. Each person consumes an average of 24 kilos per year and the FAO estimates that in the 2021-2022 season the production will be 207 million tons, 26% more than ten years before. Of the world's sugar production, around 80% is produced from sugar cane, while 20% comes from beet sugar. The latter is a chenopodiaceous, a plant that resists heat, cold and frost well when it comes to climate. However, when the climates are colder, beets reach their highest quality. Hence, the northern half of Europe is where most of the EU's sugar beet is grown. Beet seed companies need to adapt their production to such high demand, and for this, they must select the most profitable varieties. The main factor by which certain varieties are selected is for their white sugar yield per hectare. That is why key ...

Source: Castilla