Sweet smell of success for GM crop researchers

A GENE from peppermint gene has been used to engineer a “whiffy” wheat strain that scares off aphid pests.

The advance is described as a UK first, with far-reaching potential for farming – in future, it may be possible to cut the use of pesticides on plants.

Scientists also say the change is more natural than other forms of genetic modification. It harnesses one of the plant world’s own defence mechanisms, pheromone odour signals.

Peppermint produces a scent, undetectable to humans, which mimics an alarm signal generated by aphids when they are attacked by predators. This helps deter the insects, which suck sugar out of plants and cause global crop damage costing billions of pounds each year.

Eight test plots of the wheat are now growing at the Rothamsted Research agricultural institute in Hertfordshire. Scientists will watch the plants closely over the summer to see if their performance matches what is predicted by laboratory studies.

Professor John Pickett, head of chemical ecology at Rothamsted Research, said: “We are providing a totally new way of controlling pests that doesn’t rely on toxic modes of action.”

Wheat worth £1.2 billion is grown in the UK each year. Without pesticides, it is estimated that around £100 million of that would be lost to aphids.

Globally, aphids and other pests rob farmers of up to 30 per cent of all crop yields even with extensive use of pesticides.

Professor Maurice Moloney, chief executive of Rothamsted Research, said that the new research marked a change of approach to genetic modification of crops.

He said: “What we’re really doing is putting a ‘no parking zone’ on every leaf of the plant saying, ‘Don’t come here, this is not a place you want to be’.

“It’s a very different strategy.”