AgGene - Trait Development Pipeline

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AgGene is developing trait technology to enhance production seed protein content in essential crops like rice, peas, chickpeas, and canola. Our innovations are designed to meet the growing global demand for sustainable, high-quality protein across both human food and livestock feed industries. Here’s how our technology benefits the future of agriculture and food production:

Benefit 1: Enhancing Nutrition of Low Protein Crops

Enhancing protein content in traditionally low-protein crops like rice, enabling consumers to enhance their protein intake without changing their diet. With over one billion people already facing protein deficiency and the global demand for protein rapidly increasing, our technology provides a timely solution to a critical nutritional challenge. 

Benefit 2: Varieties for Sustainable Agriculture

Pulse crops naturally fix nitrogen for growth and development, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. Increasing seed protein in pulse crops, without the need for additional fertilizer supports environmentally friendly crop rotations.

Benefit 3: High Protein Livestock Feed

AgGene’s enhanced crops provide a valuable source of high-protein feed for livestock. By boosting the protein content in crops used for animal feed, we help farmers improve the efficiency of livestock production while reducing the need for resource-intensive feed sources like soy. This supports both animal health and environmental sustainability.

Benefit 4: Optimized Protein for Food Ingredient Manufacturing

Increased seed protein content not only improves the nutritional profile of crops but also enhances protein fractionation and isolation processes. Food ingredient manufacturers can more efficiently extract high-quality protein from our gene-edited crops, allowing them to develop superior plant-based protein ingredients for a variety of food products.

AgGene has identified key players in the regulation of  canola pod development and has developed novel strategies to improve pod shatter, which are different than commercially available traits on the market.  

Benefit 1: Lower Input Costs

Enables one pass harvest, reducing fuel consumption and labour during harvest

Benefit 2: Higher Yields

Pods remain intact and reduce losses associated with pod shatter. Wind, hail and mechanized harvesting can facilitate pod shatter. 

Benefit 3: Reduce Volunteer Weed Populations

Reducing pod shatter leads to lower levels of volunteer canola, which compete with crops in successive years. 

AgGene is currently strategizing a portfolio of traits to improve drought stress in Canola and other important row crops.  Drought stress initiates a wide variety of plant responses which can negatively affect plant height, growth, reproduction, fruit production, etc. With an increasingly arid worldwide climate due to climate change, it is vital to develop strategies in crop production that can mitigate the challenges of drought stress 

Spring canola in Canada is often subjected to high temperature stress during flowering. High temperature stress can negatively impact Canola reproduction leading to significant yield loss due to poor seed set. AgGene is strategizing approaches to improve reproductive output under high temperature stress.