Funding Opportunities with Industry

HortiEdit 2025: Healthier Harvests and Sustainable Solutions

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Background

Gene Editing for Healthier Harvests and Sustainable Solutions. The global agricultural landscape faces continuous challenges, including climate unpredictability, increasing pest and disease pressures, and labor shortage. These challenges necessitate innovative solutions to ensure food security and promote sustainable agricultural practices. One promising approach is the application of gene editing technologies to improve the health and resilience of fruits and vegetables. This project aims to leverage gene editing to develop solanaceous crops (such as tomatoes and peppers), cucurbits (such as cucumbers and melons), and strawberries that exhibit reduced susceptibility to diseases, enhanced architectural traits, and improved agronomic sustainability.

What we're looking for

This project aims to leverage gene editing to develop solanaceous crops (such as tomatoes and peppers), cucurbits (such as cucumbers and melons), and strawberries that exhibit reduced susceptibility to diseases, enhanced architectural traits, and improved agronomic sustainability. Disease Resistance: To develop fruits and vegetables with enhanced resistance to prevalent diseases, and minimizing crop losses. Architectural Modifications: To create plants with structural changes that allow for more more efficient production practices, facilitate mechanized harvesting, optimize space utilization in fields and faster growth cycles, without compromising yield.

Solutions of interest include:

Gene editing

Our must-have requirements are:

Mature technology (no proof of concept) in the listed crops, tested at a minimum in GH environment, with clear and measurable phenotype, ready for licensing or commercial development via trait integration.
Edits already made and molecularly characterized in the crops or interest.

What's out of scope:

GMO
Proof of concept technology in a different crop

Acceptable technology readiness levels (TRL):

Levels 5-9

What we can offer you

Eligible partnership models:

Licensing

Material transfer

Benefits:

Expertise

Bayer Vegetable Seeds is recognized as a leader in several key areas within the agricultural sector. Bayer invests heavily in research and development to create innovative seed varieties that are high-yielding, resilient to diseases, and adaptable to various growing conditions.

Market Access

Bayer Vegetable Seed is a global leader in the agricultural industry with a strong market presence. Partnering with Bayer can provide innovators with immediate access to established distribution networks and customer bases, which can significantly accelerate market entry.

Who we are

Bayer’s vision of #HealthForAll, #HungerForNone drives our need to strengthen innovation capabilities in all areas of agriculture. We know we can’t accomplish this alone, so we're always interested to hear about novel, early-stage scientific innovations that can contribute to feeding the world without starving the planet. You have our commitment to take a look, match with our R&D priorities and provide you timely feedback.

Learn more

Reviewers

Phil Taylor

Director of Open Innovation & Outreach

Dan Ruzicka

Innovation Sourcing Lead - Biotech Breeding

Q&A with Bayer Crop Science

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Seeking partners focused on

Agricultural Science