The Digest’s Special Report on Drought

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Dire US media headlines abound: “Drought!” What’s real, what’s hype, and what are the impacts? More importantly, what alternatives does science give us now, and in the future, with more drought-tolerant energy and food crops?
...A Yahoo report that ran last night and was in the Top Story feed this morning (July 6) brought more bad news: “Just under 56 percent of the contiguous United States is in drought conditions, the most extensive area in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. The previous drought records occurred on Aug. 26, 2003, when 54.79 percent of the lower 48 were in drought and on Sept 10, 2002, when drought extended across 54.63 percent of this area.”
Time to panic? The Yes and No arguments So, should we be hugely worried that – for example, the corn harvest will be massively affected, prices will skyrocket, and food vs fuel concerns will breakout even as US ethanol distilleries, facing escalating feedstock prices and static fuel prices, cuts back on production? Is a disaster in the making?
The Yes argument. In New York, a Reuters report, based on the latest ethanol production numbers, advises that it is so. “The ethanol industry is bracing for its worst spell since the bankruptcy-ridden days of 2007 and 2008,” ...
The No argument. So far, the drought is highly regionalized, especially with respect to corn. For example, in terms of corn condition, 50 percent of Indiana corn is rated very poor or poor, while only 10 percent is rated thus in Iowa and 4 percent in Minnesota. The average is 9 percent.
What’s being done in crop R&D about drought-tolerance
Nature reports new drought tolerant maize strains released by Pioneer. ...
Improvements in plant stress response. ...
Plants subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience, new research has found. ...
Biofuels and energy crop developments in drought tolerance
Super-performing corn hybrid. In February, University of Illinois researchers developed a new maize hybrid that they report will produce as much as 15% to 20% more biomass given the same amount of fertilizer as commercial hybrids. ...
Drought-tolerant corn trait. Last December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture deregulated MON 87460, Monsanto’s first-generation drought-tolerant trait for corn. ...
Stress-related hormones enable plant response. In December, researchers at UC Riverside reported a way to heighten a plant’s cellular response to drought. Plants under drought stress produce abscisic acid, a stress hormone to help the plant survive. The research, conducted at the laboratory of Associate Professor Sean Cutler, has now succeeded in supercharging the plant’s stress response pathway by modifying the abscisic acid receptors so that they can be turned on at will and stay on. ...
Genetic mutation enables drought endurance. Last year, researchers at Purdue University found a genetic mutation that allows a plant to better endure drought without losing biomass. ...

Who’s working on drought-resistance energy crops?

In specific bioenergy crops, companies such as Ceres (switchgrass, energy cane in the Blade energy crop family) and Mendel Biotechnologies (miscanthus) have been garnering the most attention as they bring new traits forward for the new integrated biorefineries utilizing energy crops. SG Biofuels are also working on traits related to jatropha, which has a history of low-water tolerance.
The bottom line
For now, expect panic – more investors will be reading Reuters and Yahoo than the Digest, and can be expected to freak out.
READ MORE and MORE (Reuters) and MORE (US Department of Agriculture) and MORE (Drought Monitor/Science Daily)