Editing Food Crop Genes to Cope With Increasing Drought Conditions

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, aren’t very common in American cuisine. But in some parts of the world, such as India and sub-Saharan Africa, chickpeas are a staple. Chickpeas are ALSO very sensitive to drought, which is a growing problem across those chickpea-dependent regions. Australian researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, including Nitin Mantri, genetically engineered a drought-resilient chickpea.