Yield enhancement through modified plant cell walls
Cell walls provide structural strength to plants and act as an important physical barrier to diseases and pests. Cell walls need to relax and reform to allow plant cells to divide and the plant to grow. We have inserted a plant gene into eucalyptus, which produces an enzyme, which plays a role in cell wall relaxation and reformation, accelerating plant growth and biomass accumulation.
The technology has been tested in eucalyptus in different geographic locations in Brazil since 2006. We received commercial approval for our first product in April 2015, therefore becoming the first company in the world to have obtained regulatory approval to commercially deploy a yield-enhanced, genetically modified eucalyptus variety