Biotechnologists at the National Research Council's Plant Biotechnology Institute are using transgenics to develop ways to take the protein-producing genes from soybeans and transplant them into canola, a crop which grows extremely well in Western Canada. If canola meal can be enhanced to become a more efficient livestock feed, the value of the farmer's canola crop increases. Herbs Herbs and specialty crops are becoming very important in the world market. The Saskatoon research group of PGE Canada is working with five other companies to develop a variety of herbs and specialty crops which will be adopted to Western Canadian conditions. On the prairies, an invasion of insects can ruin an entire crop.
Farmers often have to use chemical insecticides to save their plants.
The fleabeetle which dines exclusively on canola is an example of a major insect pest. Scientists at Plant Genetic Systems, a company which has just opened new Canadian offices in Saskatoon, have found a naturally-occurring bacteria which produces a protein toxic to the fleabeetle. They have isolated the gene which produces the protein, clipped it from the bacterium and placed it in a new strain of canola. This new variety is resistant to fleabeetles. When the fleabeetle eats this new canola, the protein produced by its transgenic gene blocks its stomach and it starves to death.