Yield10 Bioscience has signed a three-year, non-exclusive research agreement with GDM, a US-based company specialising in plant genetics, to evaluate novel yield traits in soybean. Through the agreement, GDM will work with Yield10 yield traits within its research and development program for soybean with the aim of improving soybean yield performance and sustainability. The research agreement includes three novel crop yield traits in the first phase with the potential to expand the program to more traits in the future. Yield10 has reported that, in greenhouse and/or field tests, the traits have shown activities including improved vigour, increased photosynthesis and/or increased seed yield.

Both Yield10 and GDM intend to explore forming a broader collaboration to leverage Yield10’s GRAIN trait gene discovery platform and GDM’s rapid trait editing capabilities in elite varieties for the discovery, development and launch of novel soybean performance traits.