After experimenting with the idea for almost a year Bionic Palm MD Ulrich B Riemann has finally decided to officially launch his new blog "The Jatropha Breeder 3.0 by Bionic Palm". This coincides with the successful end of an almost 24 months proof-of-concept (POC) testing our various ideas and concepts to improve the immensely under-performing Jatropha curcas species in its potential role as an energy and feed crop.
We were able to demonstrate with great success that our vision of high performing non-toxic Jatropha cultivars is not a dream, but in many ways a reality. Before the POC ended June 30th we were able to develop the first 12 seedlings of a highly variable back-cross generation (BC1). This generation of unique hybrids will be a cornerstone for various promising breeding approaches to come. Going forward many high yielding non-toxic and toxic varieties will be developed. We expect to reach our initial target of a high performing non-toxic elite cultivar within the coming 24 months. Field testing has already started with some unique early non-toxic intraspecific hybrids which will be used in long term poultry feed trials starting later this year.
Here at the Bionic Group we are all very excited to see what was achievable so far with a small network of scientific partners from Europe and a very small budget. A significant amount of valuable IP has been generated which will lead to a number of patent applications in the near future.
