A new grafting technique is developing that could revolutionize how the global agriculture industry cultivates crops, especially in areas prone to abiotic stressors such as heat, drought, salt, and pests.
This innovation – in polyploid grafting- could open up new possibilities for farming in hot climates, making crops such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers more resilient to challenging environmental conditions, while having a significant positive impact on growing food security concerns.
Yet despite its clear potential, longstanding questions remain as to (i) the technology’s commercial viability and (ii) whether other agricultural science advances may have a similar impact.
A major development recently occurred with a patent filed for one of the most promising applications of the technology – by Professor Mark Tester and owned by iyris (formerly known as RedSea).
Polyploidy is the presence of more than two sets of chromosomes in a plant, a condition that can enhance its resilience. For tomatoes, polyploid grafting involves grafting a normal commercial variant of a tomato plant onto a polyploid rootstock. This grafting method imparts increased resistance to abiotic stressors. Research suggests that polyploid tomatoes could better withstand extreme heat, salinity, drought, and pest pressures – stressors all increasingly common due to climate change.
Professor Mark Tester’s patent is a transformative step forward. The technology behind it addresses a key challenge in polyploid grafting – namely the difficulty in reliably producing viable polyploid plants. While polyploidy can offer many advantages – including better stress resistance – inducing polyploidy in plants has historically been complex, time consuming and expensive.
Traditional methods often resulted in low success rates or required labor-intensive procedures. This caused minimal adoption levels of polyploid grafting due to the obvious limitations around viable commercial application. However, Tester’s plant science innovation promises to make the process more efficient and scalable, potentially overcoming previous hurdles.
Key to the scientific breakthrough are specific techniques – developed in Tester’s lab – for inducing polyploidy through improved grafting methods is protected by patent. If the technologies can be refined and scaled, the benefits could be huge.
Tomatoes, for example, are one of the world’s biggest fresh produce and processing crops, but are highly sensitive to environmental stress, particularly in hot climates or areas with saline water. By improving tomatoes’ ability to survive under these harsh conditions, the technology could contribute to greater food security in areas currently vulnerable to crop failures.
This patent could also have a major commercial impact for agriculture companies backing polyploid grafting. The market for drought-resistant and heat-tolerant crops is growing, as more farmers seek ways to mitigate climate change’s impact.
An open question is to what extent polyploid grafting will be a scalable solution for farming in hot climates, or, if other advances might rival its impact. Several other research efforts focused on genetic modification, plant breeding, and soil management techniques could offer complementary benefits.
Scientists have been working on creating genetically modified tomatoes more resistant to heat and salinity and developing rootstocks that help plants manage water better. However, the resistance to genetic modification leaves the playing field clearer for polyploid grafting, as this is a fully non-GMO process.
Polyploid grafting holds great promise, especially in helping crops like tomatoes withstand abiotic stressors – but its early stage means the full commercial impact is hard to predict. Yet the recent patent by Professor Mark Tester and iyris is exciting.
The potential for a fundamental change in farming practices in hot climates depends on how quickly and successfully the technology can be implemented at scale. Also, of interest is how this development reconciles with the broader context of agricultural innovation, as scientists, globally, continue to seek ways to make farming more resilient to the challenges of climate change and feed ever-growing populations.
By Daniel Bryant, CTO of iyris