US GMO Wheat on the Horizon

Colorado wheat has recently announced that the Colorado wheat research foundation and bio series crop solutions have entered into an agreement to advance climate resilient HB, four wheat in the US. Colorado wheat executive director Brad Erker with more on the new GMO wheat.

“HB4 is a trait that has been put into wheat in South America by bio series. So it's been grown now in Argentina for a few years. So it's a GMO trait, because what's been done is a scientist took a gene from a sunflower plant, which is known to be a pretty drought tolerant plant. They took a gene from a sunflower plant and put it into wheat. Within wheat, it's a gene that affects several 100 other genes to make the plants more stress tolerant.”

Erker says it could be several years before farmers are able to plant this. HB, four wheat due to regulatory approval processes.

“We commit to adhere to all of these preconditions that have been set out by the farmers in the United States that we would meet before we start growing GMO wheat, and one of the most important ones of those is export market approvals.”

Erker says there are seven countries making up over 5% of US wheat exports that have yet to approve GMO wheat.