Agrocscope Gets Approval on Field Trial of Barley Modified Using CRISPR-Cas9

The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment has approved Agroscope's field trial of spring barley. The field trial is focused on a barley gene that has been disabled by using CRISPR-Cas9 technique to determine whether yields can be increased in this manner.

The CKX2 gene is involved in seed formation. Disabling this gene using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing increases yields in rice and oilseed rape. Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin observed that barley has two slightly different copies of the CKX2 gene. Together with scientists from the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), they produced barley lines where both copies were disabled. These lines developed more grains per spike in the greenhouse.

The field trial will begin in spring 2024 on the Protected Site at Agroscope Zurich-Reckenholz and will run for around three years.

For more details, read the press release from Agroscope.