Transgenics

Transgenic plants are those which have had a gene or DNA segment from another organism inserted into their DNA.

Currently these are mainly crops with insect resistances (eg. BT maize) but include nutritionally enhanced crops as well (eg. Golden Rice).

This strategy can be a quick and effective way of developing improved crop varieties, but currently is impeded by legal and bureaucratic issues and consumer perception (for a good review, see Farre et al. (2010) Current Opinion in Plant Biology 13: 219-225).

This maize variety released by Monsanto and Dow in 2009 has 8 different herbicide and pest resistance traits added.