BASF Podcast - Better harvest in spite of climate stress

BASF Corporate Communications started a regular bilingual Podcast service in April 2007 to report on BASF’s innovations and research and development activities in an easy-to-understand, informative and entertaining way.

In this Podcast of “Chemistry of Innovations” you will learn about how plant biotechnology can help to make crops more tolerant against climate stress.

Climatic conditions such as heat or cold and rain or drought can determine whether a harvest turns out well or badly. Because whenever these conditions are not optimal, plants also find themselves in a stressful situation, literally. On top of that the reality today is that by now the farmer’s work goes far beyond the mere production of foodstuffs. Through the growing demand for renewable resources production in a more and more efficient manner is needed. The question is: Will the traditional farming industry be able to master these challenges it now faces? Established aids such as fertilizers, pesticides and conventional crop cultivation methods are as essential as ever. However, these methods on their own accord will not succeed in producing as much as is needed. One solution could be plant biotechnology. With its help BASF Plant Science develops for example stress tolerant crops. In a targeted manner genes from other plants that already possess the desired traits are inserted into agricultural plants such as corn, soya, canola or cotton. This enables them to better handle stress factors like drought or cold for example.

Listen to the audio reportage with the experts Dr. Jonathan Bryant and Dr. Juergen Logemann of BASF Plant Science.