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More efficient agriculture |
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Increasingly higher demands are being made on modern agricultural production. It has to provide high-quality products, while being sustainable and cost-effective. Consequently, we require an agriculture that uses higher-yield, resource-saving and environmentally compatible cultivation technologies at appropriate locations.
One way of improving the productivity of crop plants is to increase their tolerance to drought. Modern biotechnological methods can help to develop plants with characteristics of this type.
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Paths to more efficient agriculture
In nature, a wide variety of mechanisms to overcome stress factors have developed in the course of evolution. Thus, marine algae can cope with extremely high salt concentration levels, whereas plants such as cactuses are able to survive in extremely hot and arid surroundings.
What is more logical than to take such natural models, to understand the their mechanisms and then to transfer them to cultivated plants such as corn, soybeans, rape, and wheat?
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| Environmental factors play a decisive role for the growth of plants. Drought is a frequent cause of crop failure. With the aid of genetic engineering plants can be better adapted to such conditions. |
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Stress tolerance in higher plants
Researchers at BASF Plant Science focus intensively on the stress tolerance of higher plants. The following example provides details and shows the progress we have made in the past two years:
Plants with improved drought tolerance
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For further information on innovative subjects please see:
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