Performance Plants announces key advancement of drought tolerant cotton in Bayer Crop Science product development collaboration

Performance Plants Inc. (PPI), a leading developer of agricultural biotechnologies for crop improvement world-wide, announces that the company has reached an important crop performance target in the development of drought tolerant and high-yielding cotton for the Bayer Crop Science product development pipeline using PPI’s Yield Protection Technology (YPT®).

YPT® technology enables crops to maintain maximal yields through protection against yield losses sustained under suboptimal rainfall or periodic drought conditions while showing no yield drag under optimal water conditions. The technology has been validated in key staple crops such as canola, rice, corn and soybean. Bayer licensed PPI’s Yield Protection Technology (YPT®) to develop drought tolerant and high-yielding cotton in 2009. In the past three consecutive years of field trials under multiple environmental conditions, the YPT cotton showed significant yield advantages over its controls without the YPT trait under water stress, and no negative effects on growth under optimal conditions. These positive crop performance data propel the continued advancement of this technology in Bayer’s cotton product development and commercialization pipeline.

“Cotton is one of the most important commodity crops but its yield is severely limited by water stress conditions in the majority of cotton farmland. We are excited about this solid and promising YPT technology performance data obtained by Bayer, and Bayer’s continued advancement of the product towards commercialization”, said Dr. Yafan Huang, President & Chief Scientific Officer of Performance Plants. “Working closely with Bayer, we hope to be the first to deliver effective genetic solutions for cotton farmers to increase the productivity around the world.”

Cotton is the most important cash crop with over 35 million hectares grown globally, with India, China and the United States being the largest producers. Cotton requires warm and dry climate to grow, and better yields are achieved by irrigation. Constant and enormous water consumption used for irrigating cotton field has led to significant ecological and economical problems in various countries.

Through its Gene Discovery and Trait Development Program, PPI has validated and patented an array of world-leading second generation, commercial ready technologies to capitalize on the market for innovation in agricultural and bioenergy crop markets. PPI’s Yield Protection Technology® (“YPT®”) enables plants to better tolerate drought conditions and to produce higher seed yield under limited water conditions. In addition, PPI has a series of breakthrough technologies in different stages of development: Heat & Drought Tolerance Technology (“HDT”), Water Use Efficiency Enhancement Technology (“WET™”), Biomass Enhancement Technology (“BET™”), and Yield Enhancement Technology (“YET™”). All PPI technologies are focused on the use of a plant's own genes for key agronomic trait improvement.