The Realized Yield Effect of Genetically Engineered Crops: U.S. Maize and Soybean
The Realized Yield Effect of Genetically Engineered Crops: U.S. Maize and Soybean
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DOI：
10.2135/cropsci2012.06.0399
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发表时间：
2013-05
期刊：
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Zheng Xu;D. Hennessy;Kavita Sardana;G. Moschini
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Zheng Xu;D. Hennessy;Kavita Sardana;G. Moschini
提高产量对于确保不断增长的世界人口的粮食安全至关重要，特别是考虑到利用土地生产生物燃料的潜力越来越大。以绿色革命等成功为代表的过去生产力增长的惊人速度，要想保持这种增长速度，必然要依赖于生物技术创新，比如那些促成转基因作物发展的生物技术创新。一些人认为，相对于20世纪传统育种所建立的轨迹，生物技术的使用可以大大提高产量。由于自20世纪90年代末引进转基因品种以来，美国对转基因品种的采用一直非常强烈，因此我们对转基因技术是否以及在多大程度上提高了实现产量进行了实证调查。我们对美国非灌溉玉米（Zea mays L.）和大豆（Glycine max (L.)）进行了研究。在控制了当地影响、天气、施肥和先前存在的（非转基因）作物改良趋势后，从1964年到2010年的玉米产量。对于玉米，我们发现转基因品种提高了实现产量，在中央玉米带（CCB）的收益更大。就大豆而言，转基因品种的产量似乎略有下降。对于这两种作物，我们发现产量增长趋势强劲，近年来在CCB内可能有所加速。然而，产量趋势和通用电气采用的综合影响预计将低于行业预测所设想的增长率。
Yield improvements are critical to ensuring food security for a growing world population especially in view of the increasing potential for use of land in biofuel production. Efforts to sustain the impressive rate of past productivity gains, epitomized by such successes as the Green revolution, are bound to rely on biotechnology innovations such as those responsible for the development of genetically engineered (GE) crops. Some argue that the use of biotechnology can substantially improve yields relative to the trajectory established by traditional breeding in the 20th century. Because U.S. adoption of GE varieties has been very strong since their introduction in the late 1990s, we investigated empirically whether and to what extent the GE technology has improved realized yields. We study this question for nonirrigated U.S. maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) yields over 1964 through 2010, having controlled for local effects, weather, fertilization, and the preexisting (non-GE) crop improvement trend. For maize we find that GE varieties have increased realized yields, with a stronger gain in the Central Corn Belt (CCB). For soybeans, GE varieties appear to have slightly reduced yields. For both crops we find a strong trend in yield growth, which may have accelerated in recent years within the CCB. However, the combined effects of yield trend and GE adoption are predicted to fall short of the growth rate envisioned by industry projections.