Posts Tagged: "corn"

Monsanto’s 2005 acquisition of vegetable and fruit seed producer Seminis, Inc., continues to pay dividends for the corporation as readers can see in a couple of patents which have recently issued from the USPTO. U.S. Patent No. 9125354, which is titled Squash Hybrid LEBEHH9044 and Parents Thereof, claims a squash plant and seed having a first set of chromosomes of squash line ZGN-EH-09-7554. The squash plant protected here exhibits desirable traits for commercial squash production and is well suited for the development of new lines based the elite nature of the plant’s genetic background. Another invention which was initially filed by elite lettuceSeminis can be seen within U.S. Patent No. 9072271, titled Agronomically Elite Lettuce with Quantitative Bremia lactuca Resistance. This patent protects a lettuce seed containing an allele conferring resistance to Bremia lactucae and lacking a second allele conferring resistance to Lactuca saligna and conferring traits in adventitious shoots, bubbled leaves and reduced plant diameter. This innovation is intended to produce lettuce with a natural resistance to downy mildew without conferring some undesirable agronomic traits which are genetically linked to the resistance traits.