BrettYoung and Cibus Global have announced an agreement to developed enhanced traits for canola using Cibus’s Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS), which does not involve introduction of foreign genetic material and therefore designation as transgenic or genetically modified.
BrettYoung will distribute the resulting varieties through network in the United States and Canada.
Cibus says RTDS is a “development procedure that will use canola’s natural process of gene repair to effect a precise change in the genetic sequence.” RTDS has been recognized by the USDA as a mutagenesis technique, and is therefore not subject to the regulations applied to transgenic crops. Cibus says mutagenesis-derived crops and traits are already produced in several food categories, including food grains (rice, oats and durum wheat), vegetable oil crops (sunflower, canola and flax), beer ingredients (barley, hops and yeast) and seedless fruits (grapes and citrus fruits).
BrettYoung is a privately owned seed company based in Winnipeg, with a variety of seeds and related products for agriculture, horticulture and forage. Cibus Global is based in San Diego, California. It recently announced a $37 million “development alliance” with Mahkteshim-Agan, an Israeli company which describes itself as “the world’s leader in branded off-patent crop protection solutions.”
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