New mutations for herbicide resistance rarer than expected, study finds
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - 22:25
in Mathematics & Economics
After exposing more than 70 million grain amaranth seeds to a soil-based herbicide, researchers were not able to find a single herbicide-resistant mutant. Though preliminary, the findings suggest that the mutation rate in amaranth is very low, and that low-level herbicide application contributes little—if anything—to the onset of new mutations conferring resistance, researchers say.