By Robert Pore

Nebraska weather is always uncertain.
During the last several years, the state crop fields have had heavy rains.
Prior to that, drought plagued the state for nearly a decade, lowering the
groundwater level.

But modern technology that has brought biotech varieties of corn and
soybeans that now account for more than 80 percent of the state production
of those two crops is poised to include another new biotech variety.

At Husker Harvest Days near Grand Island Sept. 9-11, Monsanto will have a
test plot that's one-third of an acre highlighting drought-tolerant corn,
Roundup Ready 2 Yield? and several other technologies that are important to
growers in the western Corn Belt.

"Growers in the western Corn Belt face a lot of challenges, and we're
working on new technologies that are going to help address some of those,"
said Andrew Duff, Monsanto corn traits marketing manager and 2008 Husker
Harvest Days co-lead. "There's a real opportunity out there to show growers
what we're doing that's going to benefit them in the future."

Bob McCauley, Monsanto technology development manager in Nebraska, said the
western Corn Belt receives less annual rainfall than the other states in the
region.

"Also, our topsoil and subsoils tend to be more porous, so they're more
coarse and have less water-holding capacity than the soils of Iowa and
Illinois," McCauley said.

Because Nebraska has sufficient water supplies from aquifers, rivers and
lakes, farmers implement irrigation practices to use water from these
locations for their crops, he said. Not only is this expensive, but McCauley
said it is also putting stress on the environment.

"We've had about seven years of drought, which has caused the aquifers and
lakes to go down," said McCauley. "That means there's less water available
for farmers to use for irrigation. Also, people have started worrying about
running out of water, so they've put restraints on growers for water use."

Drought-tolerant corn, one of the yield and stress projects currently in
Monsanto's R&D product pipeline and included in Monsanto's R&D collaboration
with BASF, applies technology that has consistently delivered yield
improvements compared with controls under water-stressed conditions,
according to Monsanto officials.

Drought tolerance will become increasingly critical as population pressure
and climate change combine to make water an increasingly scarce resource in
many parts of the world.

According to Monsanto, first-generation drought tolerance is targeted to
minimize uncertainty in farming by buffering against the effects of water
limitation, primarily in areas of annual water stress. In the U.S., this
area has historically been the dryland farms of the Western Great Plains.

Monsanto said the first-generation product is envisioned as the first in a
family of drought traits that has the potential to provide farmers with
irrigation cost savings, to help them achieve more consistent yields even
during times of drought, and to protect against drought stress in normally
rain-fed areas. Increased yield improves farmers' productivity, helping them
meet growing demands for feed, food and fuel.

As of January, Monsanto said, the first-generation project moved into Phase
III of its R&D pipeline, making it the industry's first biotechnology
drought project to move into the regulatory phase.

Currently, Monsanto's corn breeders are selecting hybrids for the ability to
withstand drought stress typical for the U.S. western Great Plains. The goal
is to combine both the biotech drought traits with this adapted germplasm in
combination with Monsanto's SmartStax?1 product, which is also in Phase III
of the company's pipeline, to ensure that yield potential is consistently
achieved.

In Texas, Wenwei Xu, an AgriLife Research corn breeder from Lubbock, is
working with crosses between temperate and tropically adapted varieties of
corn to find a drought-tolerant plant that performs well under reduced
irrigation.

"With the continuing decline of the Ogallala Aquifer water level and
increasing cost of pumping water, the use of drought-tolerant and high-yield
corn hybrids is a key for sustainable corn production under limited
irrigation," Xu said.

Xu said he hopes to reduce the amount of water required for corn by at least
10 percent.

"Developing and using new corn hybrids with improved tolerance to drought
and other stresses is important and a viable water-saving approach," he
said.

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