Fortunately, the chemical companies have discovered many herbicides that our crops can naturally tolerate with only a slight risk of injury. Until recently, if a good herbicide was available, but the crop could not tolerate the herbicide, there was little hope for using the herbicide in that crop. Now, scientists can use biotechnology to make crops resistant to the herbicide of choice. STS soybeans were selected using seed mutation and one imidazolinone tolerant corn line was selected using pollen mutation. Selecting herbicide resistant plants from tissue culture.
Tissue culture is the technique of growing plant cells in the laboratory.
Resistant cells are selected and regrown into resistant plants. Inserting a new gene into the plant that produces a target site enzyme that is insensitive to the herbicide. This new enzyme will produce the needed products even though the herbicide blocks the activity of the natural enzyme in the plant. Inserting a new gene into the plant that produces an enzyme that metabolizes the herbicide. These crops are also classified as GMOs.