Norin 10 In Wheat
The wheat gene, Norin 10, for example,
helped developing countries like India
and Pakistan increase their wheat
harvests by 60 percent. At the Wheat Research
Center in Mexico City that
conducted some of this research on Norin 10, there is
an inscription on the
wall when you enter the building that reads, "A
single gene has saved one
hundred million lives." From 10 million tons to
70 million tons in four
years. Norin 10 dwarfs wheat. ‘Norin 10,’ a cultivar
from Japan, provided two
very important genes, Rht1 and Rht2, that resulted in
the reduced height (or
dwarf) wheats. Better nutrient uptake and tillerage, not
to mention rocky and
less irrigated American farmers grew seventy million acres
of bioengineered
crops last year, the bulk of which comprised corn modified to
resist
devastating fungus and Roundup Ready soybeans modified to resist a
common
herbicide.