Corn that can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. i.e. Self-fertilise. The potential to adapt other plants in the same way.
Putin will probably s**t himself when he sees this. Yet another Russian economic blackmail gambit that will fail. And Russia's probably going from ding-dong banana republic to straight up useless in the future. You make your bets... Putin bet on fossil fuels, fertiliser and food. In an era when major advances in alternative energy production and food production efficiency are being made all the time. This has the potential to be on par with the green revolution in agriculture after WW2. Forget rising food prices. This could actually solve world hunger while lowering the ecological impact of farming on water ecosystems drastically.
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Russia produced 15% of the world's fertilizers. They're already able with initial cross breeding programs and proliferation of the special bacteria the corn uses to get test cultivars nearly adequate for large scale production that fixes 40% of their own nitrogen. They predict stable cultivars in 4-5 generations. That's no time.
At 40% self-fertilization (and more is possible, the original cultivar does 80%) the world's top 5 fertilizer producers could stop exporting entirely and it wouldn't dramatically impact the world.
Most of the nitrogen in chemical fertilisers are not even absorbed by crops. That's part of the problem. Using chemical fertilisers you have to provide several times the nitrogen in the fertiliser that the plant needs and most of it ends up in the sea or in the water table.
Scientists can foresee giving all agricultural grains this ability. Maybe even other types of agricultural crops too.
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