Abiotic Stress Tolerance Sought in Canola

REGINA - Feb 13/08 - SNS -- Viterra and Israel's Evogene Ltd. will work together for the next three years to genetically engineer canola varieties with tolerance to abiotic stress.

Abiotic stress refers to environmental factors, such as drought, extreme cold or heat that can have harmful effects on plants. Abiotic stress conditions have a significant impact on limiting worldwide crop productivity, especially under challenging and often variable seasonal climatic global conditions.

With the rapid increase in demand for canola oil worldwide, improving abiotic stress tolerance could significantly expand the geographical regions where canola is grown, minimizing the impact stress conditions have on productivity.

"We are very pleased to work with Evogene to bring innovative solutions to the canola market. Our Company has an ongoing commitment to plant breeding that benefits our farm customers as well as our end-use customers. We believe this particular initiative will go a long way to improving canola yields and yield stability," said Mayo Schmidt, Viterra’s President and CEO.

The candidate genes covered in this agreement were discovered by Evogene through its computer simulation gene discovery platform, named the "ATHLETE." These genes have been evaluated in model plants, showing improved yield under both normal and adverse environmental conditions.

"We have been working with global ag-biotech companies to introduce these genes into major field crops. We recently announced successful third year field trial results for one of these candidate genes - Evo133. It is with this momentum that we go into our collaboration with Viterra, sharing that common goal to develop canola with improved yields and enhanced performance under a variety of conditions," said Ofer Haviv, Evogene's President and CEO.

Development, testing and evaluation on Viterra’s canola varieties will begin this spring and take place over the next several years. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.