The National Corn Growers Association announced that three biotech firms will begin sharing their maize or corn genome sequence data. The action by Ceres Inc., Monsanto Co., and DuPont subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., is expected to provide a considerable boost to efforts to accelerate the identification of genes within the entire corn genome, according to the NCGA.

The data will be available to research scientists through a searchable database on the Web. The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, a not-for-profit research institute, will host the data. To gain access to the data, scientists must complete a licensing agreement that will be downloadable on the NCGA Web site, www.ncga.com.