Ardmore, Oklahoma
March 4, 2009
The
Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and
Forage Genetics
International, LLC, a Land O’Lakes subsidiary, have entered
into a multi-year research collaboration focused on improving
alfalfa for a broad range of applications, including forage,
silage and industrial uses.
As part of the collaboration, Forage Genetics International
(FGI) provides a gift to advance the Noble Foundation’s
infrastructure and research, education and outreach programs as
well as provide additional funding for targeted research in
alfalfa for the next decade. In return, FGI obtains an option to
commercialize Noble Foundation technologies in alfalfa through
royalty-bearing licenses. Specific financial terms of the
agreement were not released.
“The Noble Foundation and FGI have worked together for almost a
decade on various projects,” said Michael A. Cawley, President
and Chief Executive Officer. “This collaboration allows us to
expand our interaction to focus on improving and enhancing the
value of alfalfa. This relationship combines our scientific
expertise with FGI’s regulatory understanding and
commercialization pipeline to deliver new technologies to
agricultural producers.”
As with all legumes, alfalfa plays a key role in cropping
systems around the world. Legumes, such as soybean, clovers and
peanuts, contain higher protein and fix a significant amount of
atmospheric nitrogen, making them an economical and
environmentally-important resource. According to the National
Alfalfa and Forage Alliance, alfalfa contributes more than $7.5
billion to the United States economy.
“The Noble Foundation’s basic research on engineering metabolic
pathways has generated an exciting new opportunity to improve
forage quality and expand the potential industrial uses of
alfalfa,” said Mark McCaslin, President of FGI. “The forage
genomics and metabolomics programs at the Noble Foundation are
cornerstones to understanding gene function and driving new
trait discovery, and have the potential to greatly increase the
value of alfalfa worldwide. In the next 10-20 years we will be
able to re-design crops like alfalfa for optimum performance
under various growing environments and for various end uses.”
In recent years, the Noble Foundation’s basic plant researchers
have focused on understanding and improving legumes. The Noble
Foundation is recognized internationally for its efforts to
advance the legume Medicago truncatula as the genomic model for
the study of all legumes, including economically significant
crops such as soybean, alfalfa, clover and peanut.
The Noble Foundation was a catalyst in the international effort
to sequence the DNA (genome) of M. truncatula, and today
continues to develop and disseminate genomic resources for the
scientific community from this project. Importantly, this
collaboration aligns with the Noble Foundation’s mission to
assist farmers and ranchers. The Noble Foundation performs
fundamental plant science research, plant breeding and
agricultural programs, such as consultation and education, to
achieve this important objective.
The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Inc. (www.noble.org),
headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is an independent, nonprofit
institute conducting plant science research, plant breeding and
agricultural programs to enhance agricultural productivity,
which influences agriculture regionally, nationally and
internationally. The Noble Foundation also provides grants to
nonprofit charitable, educational and health organizations.
Forage Genetics International, LLC
Forage Genetics International a wholly owned subsidiary of Land
O’Lakes, Inc., is the world leader in the development,
production and marketing of alfalfa germplasm and traits that
add value to their seed customers, and to livestock producers
and other alfalfa end users.
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