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Genetic futures: companies like DeKalb Genetics Corp (above) may gain from sequencing project. Credit: AP/BOB CHILD

A $40 million-a-year initiative at the US National Science Foundation to sequence a plant genome has been proposed by a key Senate committee, and could be under way by the end of this year.

The initiative is being vigorously promoted by Senator Christopher Bond (Republican, Missouri) at the prompting of US corn-growers, who are excited about the potential of genetically engineered crops to increase yields.

Scientists are convinced that the proposed initiative would support first-rate science and speed up the sequencing of the genome of corn and other crops. But some are also concerned that the proposal is so large that every other area of university science at the NSF would lose out to pay for it.

Last week, Bond earmarked $40 million for a plant genome initiative in the budget bill prepared by the appropriations subcommittee of the Senate Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and independent agencies (VA-HUD), which he chairs.

Bond claims that the project is “key to keeping America number one in agriculture in the next century”. It is said to be his top personal priority in the entire $40-billion VA-HUD bill.

Agricultural interests, encouraged by the generally positive response to last summer's introduction of genetically engineered cotton crops (see Nature 387, 221 221; 1997), and aware of Japan's recent pledge to sequence the rice genome, are pushing for a coordinated effort corresponding to the Human Genome Project in the biomedical field.

The main concern of scientists is that Bond's initiative would consume half the extra money his committee wants to make available to the NSF next year, leaving other fields of science with an increase less than the rate of inflation, and dashing hopes that the science agency would have more money for general university research this year.

Together with the energy and agriculture departments, the NSF is engaged in a $6-million-a-year project to sequence the genome of Arabidopsis, a mustard plant selected for early study because of its relatively small genome. Last year, this project was incorporated into a global effort.

Neal Lane, director of the NSF, pointed out last week that the agency already spends about $20 million on plant genome research in total. But a member of Bond's staff says that the $40 million is expected to pay for new work on top of the existing activity.

Officials from the NSF, the White House and both houses of Congress are expected to hold negotiations between now and September, when the budget is finalized, on the final shape of the initiative. “We all agree that this is something we should be doing,” Bond's aide says. “It is not something we're going to fight about.”

In April, Bond's subcommittee asked the White House to create an interagency working group on plant genomes. In a preliminary report last month, the group rejected an immediate project to sequence the corn genome on cost and benefit grounds. But it did endorse the principle of a plant genome initiative, to be led, it suggested, by the US Department of Agriculture, to lay the groundwork for future sequencing efforts.

Corn has a genome six times the size of that of of rice and 17 times the size of that of Arabidopsis. The wheat genome is much larger still: six times larger than the corn genome. The working party said that the Arabidopsis work would help development of the powerful computer tools that would be needed to handle the larger genomes of the crop plants.

The NSF has traditionally fought off attempts by the Congress to tell it what research to do. But in this case, concern about the agency's independence may be alleviated by a widespread perception that plant genome research has been unfairly neglected in comparison to human genome research, which now has an institute of its own at the National Institutes of Health with an annual budget of almost $200 million.

“We've been trying to make the argument that plant biotechnology is important for 20 years,” says Mary Clutter, associate director of life sciences at the NSF.