74 / SEEDWORLD.COM JUNE 2017 INDUSTRY NEWS Delivering the people, industry, business and product news you need to know. Submissions are welcome. Email us at news@issuesink.com. Researchers from the University of British Columbia, Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and Delft University (The Netherlands) have developed a mathematical model of pollen dispersal by bees, based on field experiments. The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, evaluated the spread of genetically modified organisms to non-modified crops. “Trying to figure out how far GM pollen will travel is really difficult,” says Rebecca Tyson, University of British Columbia, Okanagan, and study co-author. “It is important to have accurate tools to estimate this, so that unintentional cross-pollination of GM material to non-GM crops can be minimized.” Caribou Biosciences, Inc. and DuPont Pioneer point to the Nature Methods publication describing SITE- Seq, a new method for comprehensively mapping CRISPR-Cas9 cleavage sites across the genome of any organism. When compared against other off-target analysis techniques, SITE-Seq detected potential off- target cleavage sites with a higher degree of resolution. This study has significant implications for the commer- cialization of products developed using CRISPR-Cas9. A paper published in Crop Science examined connec- tions between fructans in wheat plants, wheat-based food products and impacts of fructan consumption on human health. Drawing upon the current state of knowledge about wheat grain fructans and human health, potential breeding methodologies and goals were suggested. Implementation of breeding for increased wheat fructans will likely result in the devel- opment of climate-resilient varieties with increased nutritional value. Higher yields, improved pest and disease resistance and enhanced nutritional value are among potential benefits of an international scientific research effort that has resulted in an integrated physical, genetical and functional sequence assembly of the barley genome, as described in a paper published recently in Nature. The new resource, produced by the International Barley Sequencing Consortium (IBSC), will facilitate the devel- opment of new and better barley varieties able to cope with the demands of climate change. It should also help in the fight against cereal crop diseases, which cause mil- lions in losses every year. Indigo launched Indigo Partners, a program that involves collaborating with 25 leading growers and agronomic experts across the United States to evaluate agricul- tural technologies, including the company’s microbial seed treatments, on more than 15,000 acres. The Indigo Partners program will share the company’s success with growers through equity grants. With the data and insights gathered, Indigo aims to bring products to market that will profoundly improve both grower profit- ability and the way that 7 billion people are fed. The French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) has joined the International Alliance for Phytobiomes Research (Phytobiomes Alliance) as a sponsoring partner. “INRA has been at the forefront of advancing agroecology and of enhancing our knowledge of host-microbe interactions,” says Kellye Eversole, the Phytobiomes Alliance executive director. The Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council’s efforts to grow farmers’ return on their soy checkoff investments have taken another leap forward. Leaders formalized a partnership to bring Missouri’s non-GMO high oleic soybean technology to growers. The agreement grants John Schillinger and Schillinger Genetics, Inc. (SGI) a license to commercialize not only the emerging high oleic soybean technology traits, but also to breed soybean varieties combining high oleic with low lino- lenic soybean oil traits. The agreement is the first license granted to commercialize this technology. BUSINESS Syngenta opened its new Digital Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois Research Park. Bringing together the resources of a global agribusiness, the intellectual capital of a major research institution and the business mentality of a tech start-up, the Digital Innovation Lab is the first of three planned sites in Syngenta’s global network. “We are excited to embark on this chapter in our digital ag journey,” says Dan Burdett, Syngenta global head of digital agriculture.