Photo credit: PlantArcBio.
PlantArcBio, an Israeli agricultural biotechnology company specializing in gene discovery for row crops, has reported strong results from its first open-field corn trial. Plots carrying its lead drought-tolerance genes produced more than double the cob weight of untransformed controls under both standard irrigation and severe drought.
PlantArcBio's proprietary DIP (Direct In Plant) platform screens millions of genes directly in living plants under real stress, rather than in a laboratory or through computer simulations, identifying field-ready candidates in months rather than years. The platform is designed to provide seed companies with traits already proven in living plants.
PlantArcBio's 2026 open-field trial in Israel evaluated 200 plots across both inbred and hybrid corn, testing its discovered genes with multiple replications under standard irrigation and severe, sustained drought from April to August.
Corn carrying PlantArcBio's lead genes grew more vigorously and flowered uniformly, a sign of maintaining reproductive development under stress, while control corn fell behind. PlantArcBio's corn produced more and larger cobs per plant and, in the hybrid background, displayed visibly greener leaves.
At harvest, total cob weight per plot more than tripled compared with the control under irrigation, with a comparable gain under drought. Across three lead gene events tested in advanced hybrid corn, kernel yield outperformed the control under both conditions, in some cases more than doubling drought-stressed yield.
Drought is a leading driver of crop loss worldwide. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, disasters, with drought foremost among them, cost global agriculture roughly $123 billion annually, destroying an average of 69 million metric tons of grain each year, equivalent to France's entire harvest.
In its September 2026 report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its U.S. corn yield forecast to 178.5 bushels per acre following hot, dry weather late in the growing season. National production is now projected at 15.8 billion bushels, down 1.2 billion bushels from 2025. Twenty-one of 32 reporting states saw their forecasts decline, with drought and heat sharply reducing yields in Nebraska, Kansas and North Dakota, where yields fell more than 8%.
Global corn production is forecast at roughly 1.3 billion metric tons for the 2026-27 season. A hypothetical 20% yield increase applied across that production base would add approximately 260 million metric tons of corn annually, nearly double Brazil's entire annual harvest, using the same land, water and inputs.
"These field results confirm what we saw in earlier trials, and they're very encouraging," said Dr. Dror Shalitin, founder and CEO of PlantArcBio. "Especially at a time when global yields are facing severe pressure, seeing the gains come through in an actual, replicated open-field trial, under both normal and drought conditions, is an important validation step for our platform and offers a real solution. We look forward to integrating these traits into companies' breeding programs to help tackle the world's growing food security challenge."
PlantArcBio is now engaging with seed companies and breeding programs to license its lead genes for integration into elite germplasm across geographic regions and hybrid backgrounds.