Next-Gen corn - Adapting to climate shifts for higher yields

Jun 14, 2024

Strategies for developing corn varieties resilient to future climates

By Farms.com

Corn, a cornerstone of global agriculture, faces significant challenges from climate change. Led by the University of Washington, a study integrates climate projections with plant simulations to forecast optimal traits for corn cultivation in 2050 and 2100.

Professor Abigail Swann highlights that rising temperatures and arid conditions will diminish corn yields, despite beneficial effects from increased CO2 levels. The study concludes that current corn varieties are ill-suited for future climates due to these adverse effects.

Analyzing diverse corn varieties, the research identifies characteristics pivotal for future success. Unlike current strains, future-adapted corn will optimize leaf growth alongside extended grain production periods, capitalizing on longer growing seasons and accelerated growth in warmer environments.

To validate these predictions, researchers advocate employing genetic techniques such as CRISPR to hasten breeding and assess new varieties under controlled conditions. This method expedites adaptation to climate change compared to conventional selective breeding.

The study's broader implications emphasize the imperative of proactive agricultural adaptation to sustain global food security amidst burgeoning populations and changing dietary habits. While the U.S. shifts towards plant-centric diets, global meat consumption rises, augmenting demand for corn.

Future endeavors aim to collaborate with breeders in developing resilient corn varieties and extend research to other vital food crops, supported by funding from entities like the National Science Foundation and USDA.

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids