Transgenic Approaches to Drought Tolerance In Maize.

As the third most important cereal under global cultivation, maize is exposed to a wide range of environmental conditions. Of these, drought is the most important abiotic stress for maize and can cause substantial losses in productivity. Continual improvements in hybrid maize yield potential under drought and improvements in management practices are requisites for conservation of valuable water resources and long term sustainable production.  For more than a decade, transgenes have served as a valuable source of novel genetic variation for drought tolerance. Transgenes interact with endogenous genes to expand selectable diversity. However, the discovery and development of transgenes used to improve drought tolerance requires expertise from many disciplines, a robust and diverse source of genes, relevant screens, phenotyping tools and a network of reliable managed-stress field testing locations. In this talk we provide an industry perspective of current transgenic approaches towards improving maize yields under water-limited conditions, and how we employ them through a multi-pronged approach.