Cultivation

Globally, tobacco is cultivated in more than one hundred countries, preferably in warm-temperate and sub-tropical climate regions. The largest national producer of tobacco is China, followed by Brazil, India, the USA, Zimbabwe, Turkey and Indonesia. In 2008, the cultivation area totalled almost 3,7 million hectares worldwide.

Utilisation

Only the leaves of the tobacco plant are used. They are dried, fermented, cut and processed into:

• cigars or cigarettes
• chewing tobacco or snuff

Gene technology: aims in research and development

Quality traits

Altered composition of the component compounds

• Tobacco with reduced nicotine content: marketed under the name Quest, innovative cigarettes that contain less nicotine or none at all are available in the USA. Quest cigarettes are produced from GM tobacco in which a naturally-occurring enzyme essential to the formation of nicotine is blocked.

Agronomic traits

Resistance to pathogens

• resistance to viruses, particularly to the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV)

• resistance to fungi

• resistance to bacteria and nematodes

Weed management

• herbicide tolerance

Resistance against pests

• insect resistance

Adaptation to factors of climate and location

• resistance to drought and cold

Renewable raw materials

Production of pharmaceutical compounds

• Molecular pharming: use as a biorector in the production of substances that are pharmaceutically or industrially useful.
  Tobacco often is chosen as a production platform, since it is easily modified genetically. Furthermore, it is not used as food or feed and therefore it is easier to manufacture active compounds in tobacco without fear of these compounds mixing with food or feed. In many countries, numerous field tests in this direction are underway.

Plant development

In biotechnology, tobacco often is used as a model plant for the testing of new procedures and in research on the function of specific genes. Therefore, field trials with GM tobacco in many cases should not be categorised as product development but instead as basic research - for example, in experiments with the following goals:

• altered period of flowering

• yield enhancement (male sterility, the production of hybrids with higher yields, heightened rates of photosynthesis and absorption of nitrogen)

• the formation of specific compounds that prompt the ageing process is suppressed, which retards the wilting of leaves.

• the formation of ethylene is suppressed, which retards the process of ripening and lengthens the available storage time.

Land reclamation

• Phyto-reclamation of earth that is contaminated with heavy metals: the plants are altered in such a manner that they are able to grow in such earth and enrich their plant mass with the heavy metals.

• Rehabilitation of ground with landmines: tobacco plants are being developed with leaves that become red when growing on ground that is contamined with landmines.

Field trials with GM tobacco

Use of GM tobacco