Drought-Tolerant Corn Breakthrough Could Add 260 Million Tonnes to Global Production

Israeli ag-biotech company PlantArcBio has reported strong results from its first open-field corn trial. The company's lead drought-tolerance genes produced more than double the cob weight of untransformed controls under both standard irrigation and severe drought.

The trial, conducted in Israel this year, evaluated 200 plots across both inbred and hybrid corn. Corn carrying PlantArcBio's lead genes grew more vigorously and flowered uniformly, a sign of staying reproductively on track under stress.

The advantages compounded into markedly heavier cobs: total cob weight per plot more than tripled over the control under irrigation, with a comparable gain under drought. Across three lead gene events tested in hybrid advanced corn, kernel yield outperformed the control in both conditions, in some cases more than doubling drought-stressed yield.

PlantArcBio's proprietary DIPTM (Direct In Plant) platform screens millions of genes directly in living plants under real stress, rather than in a dish or in silico. This approach has allowed the company to discover field-ready candidates in months rather than years.