Patent ID: 7193128

Claim:
A method of increasing revenue from a corn crop by producing a modified corn crop having a commercially desirable trait, the method comprising the steps of: (a) adding a gene encoding the commercially desirable trait to a minichromosome comprising a centromere sequence that (i) confers the ability to segregate to daughter cells and (ii) comprises at least 5 repeated nucleotide sequences from corn genomic DNA that hybridize to any one of SEQ ID NO: 11, SEQ ID NO: 12 or SEQ TD NO: 13 under selective conditions comprising 0.02 M to 0.15 M NaCI at a temperature of about 70° C., and wherein the repeated nucleotide sequence is about 75 base pairs to about 210 base pairs; and (b) introducing the minichromosorne produced by step (a) into a first corn crop to produce a second corn crop having the commercially desirable trait, wherein the commercially desirable trait provides increased revenue from the second corn crop compared to the first corn crop.