New polyploid hybridization grafting process

iyris has announced a scientific process breakthrough to deliver more resilient and reliable produce.

This makes it easier to grow the likes of tomatoes - one of the world's biggest fresh produce and processing crops - in environments increasingly impacted by climate change. The patented process, which tackles the challenges of hot climates, has the potential to revolutionize where crops are grown to address global food security issues.

This newly patented polyploid hybridization grafting process - mimics and significantly accelerates the natural evolutionary process of breeding genetic resilience into plant rootstocks. With this groundbreaking innovation, farmers can address, without having to change the way that they farm their land, their most urgent need: reliable, resistant crops that can mitigate and combat climate change.

The technology makes crops more resilient to stressful abiotic environments (e.g., salt, drought, heat and pests) delivering higher yields for farmers and reducing crop failure risk. The timescale and predictability of genetic resilience trait integration is significantly accelerated compared to previous methods.

Commercial trials of iyris' current hybrid grafted diploid rootstocks, delivered an average 20-25% tomato plant yield increase over the best-performing commercial alternatives. Expectations are that using this patented polyploid breeding process, yield increases will be even more significant. Results to date have demonstrated that polyploids can double yields when compared to diploids.

John Keppler, Executive Chairperson of iyris, said: "These achievements in plant science are unprecedented and a significant moment in our mission to feed the world sustainably. iyris can now offer farmers a commercially validated and reliable solution addressing the environmental and economic challenges of today."

iyris' published rootstock patent - 'Polyploidization of interspecific tomato hybrids to create stable and fertile rootstocks' follows decades of work and research, most recently at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), led by iyris co-founder, Professor Mark Tester - the world's pre-eminent plant scientist. Professor Tester's thesis developed from research (with his then - PhD student, Yveline Pailles) into resilient relatives of the tomato growing on sea-facing rock faces in the Galapagos Islands.

With increasing global temperature, and dwindling freshwater resources, ground-breaking innovative agriculture solutions are vital to break the food-water-energy nexus. The impact of climate change on global farming is becoming starker every year, and global food production is estimated to need to increase by 50%, by 2050, to feed soaring population rates. iyris' innovation is perfectly timed given its potential to change the way that crops are grown, allow sustainable agriculture in previously unviable territories for farming, and protect farmers from crop failure risk.