Associated Press
06-25-06
Healthier soybean is blast from the past
Monsanto relied on new twist on traditional breeding to get prized strain
By Christopher Leonard
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS -- When Monsanto Co. developed its newest strain of engineered
soybeans, the company didn't use gene splicing. It used math.
Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, has touted the Vistive soybean as
a scientific breakthrough because it is ready-made for processing into healthier
food oils that are low in trans fats.
But the secret recipe behind Vistive doesn't include genetic material from
bacteria or other organisms that Monsanto often uses to develop seeds of what
become pest-resistant plants.
Instead, there is an enormous numbers game, a complex system of data
analysis, gene screening and a transcontinental network of greenhouses
churning out seeds every day of the year in search of those with the desired
traits.
"I think the thing that's emerging in our business, particularly in the last year, and
I think in the next few years, is the importance of breeding," Monsanto Chief
Executive Officer Hugh Grant told stock analysts earlier this month.
The move could help Monsanto overcome hurdles in the international market,
where consumers are wary of genetically engineered crops, said Bill Selesky, an
analyst with Argus Research in New York.
By many measures, the Vistive bean was developed through traditional breeding
-- mating one plant with another, again and again, until the offspring contain
desired traits. But Monsanto applied a new twist to the age-old process, drawing
on techniques the company developed over a decade of splicing genes.
The techniques -- like using "gene markers" to spot promising seeds and
crunching the data in supercomputers -- shaved at least three years off the
process of moving Vistive from the drawing board to the marketplace, said
Monsanto vice president David Stark.
The Vistive bean traces its roots to 2002.
Concern was mounting about trans fats contributing to unhealthy cholesterol
levels. It's made when oils are partially hydrogenated, a process that stops oils
from naturally degenerating. That results in a longer shelf life.
Stark thought there was a solution -- breed a soybean with oils that are already
stable enough to have a long shelf life. Cutting out hydrogenation would mean
cutting out trans fats.
Figuring out how to do that fell to the likes of Monsanto scientist Pradip Das, who
runs the company's crop analytics laboratory that tests everything from the starch
content of a corn kernel to the genetic map of a cotton plant.
Das said scientists knew that a key reason soybean oil degenerates is the
presence of linolenic acid. Breeding beans low in the acid could reduce the need
for hydrogenation.
Genetic splicing wasn't necessary to derive such a bean. Researchers at Iowa
State University developed a "low-lin" soybean years ago, according to the
American Soybean Association. Such beans contain about 1 percent linolenic
acid in their oil as opposed to 8 percent in standard beans.
But just because there was already a strain of low-lin beans didn't mean
Monsanto could simply sell it. Commercial soybean and corn plants are like
thoroughbred racehorses, with a long genetic history that emphasizes high yields
over all. This is crucial for big commodity farmers, who typically operate with
razor-thin profit margins and large debt payments.
Melding the low-lin strain of soybean into Monsanto's line of commercial crops
could have taken many years, said Joe Byrum, Monsanto's trait integration team
leader.
"It's a needle in a haystack," Byrum said. "So if I have a tool that can go in and
pick out the needle every time, that's very efficient."
The tool Byrum uses to pick out the needle is called a genetic marker. Byrum can
take a leaf sample from a soybean sprout and instantly tell if the seed contains
the low-lin trait.
But breeding is a game of big numbers, Byrum said. It's a matter of finding the
right trait hundreds of thousands of times until the offspring is narrowed down to
the right cross -- the soybean plant with the low-lin trait and thoroughbred yield
performance.
Monsanto has sped up this numbers game at its laboratory in Ankeny, Iowa. The
lab is a hub for the company's global chain of greenhouses. Seeds are sprouted
there daily, eliminating winter downtime, letting Monsanto breed about three
soybean generations annually, Byrum said.
The right strain was found, and Vistive has been planted on about 500,000 acres
in the United States this year, according to Monsanto. After harvesting, the beans
are kept separate from the general supply and sent to food processing
companies like Cargill Inc., which sells the soybean oil as a premium product for
a variety of foods -- from cookies to spicy mustard.