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Scotts Testing Genetically Modified Grass
Caseyscrib writes "There is an article on Yahoo! News that talks about how Scotts is testing a genetically modified version of creeping bentgrass, popular on golf course greens and fairways, that will be resistant to a common weed-killing chemical. Environmentalists have long opposed bioengineered crops of any kind, and fear that '...if it was to escape onto public land, we wouldn't know how to control it.' It is now in the final stages of approval."
Scotts makes toilet paper, not grass. WTF??? I don't know if I want my grass messed with, guys. Maui Wowie made by a toilet paper company? What will they think of next? I hope they don't want me to wipe my ass with it...
welcome our new genetically engineered creeping bentgrass overlords.
I can think of several ways of controlling such grass.
1) Pour gas, light match
2) Use barriers that most people already use to stop plant growth.
3) Shovel.
In all seriousness, sounds like those afraid of controlling it are just spreading FUD. If we can modify grass to resist weed killer, who says we can't also make it vulnerable to something environmentally friendly like cooking oil?
What do you do, lie on to for a while, and seee if tries to swallow you
Oh no! How are we going to stop the smooth, soft, vibrant grass that they use on golf courses from overtaking our lawns!?
Please. I beg you. Dump some of this on my lawn.
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I'm all for getting a grass strain that will also work in my yard. I'd perfer a short grass that didn't need much mowing and also have weed prevention. That seems like it would be a hot seller, but then again Scotts also sells seed, fertilizers, weed products, etc. I have a feeling that they wouldn't want it to be availiable to the common man. If they did, they'd probably charge an arm and a leg for it.
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Retail Retreat
This is not an insightful comment in the slightest. By this reasoning, man would have never left the caves, developed agriculture, or gone into space. Apparently some slashdotters love cool computer technology, but hate other technology.
If this stuff spreads off the golf course, does the maker come after you for a patent violation?
...testing a genetically modified ... creeping ... resistant to killing ... fear that ... if it was to escape ... we wouldn't know how to control it
Shouldn't this be in the games section?
Not to trivialize the issue of bioengineered crops, but to focus on it misses what's probably the more important point... this particular "crop" is designed to allow even more use of toxic chemicals that are poisoning the water supply. It's a big step in the wrong direction. If they're going to bioengineer grass, it should be with the purpose of reducing the need for chemicals in mind.
i really wish that corporations had standards to meet for producing genetically modified organisms. most people think that genetic engineering is inherently destructive and this simply isn't true. genetic engineering done responsibly could be a wonderful boon to our society. people also forget how destructive we've been without it - simply introducing organisms to new environments has caused terrible problems. unfortunately a few irresponsible corporations could give the whole technology a bad name.
(of course, i think we'll get over this in the next couple decades)
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
We already know what havoc creatures can create if they are moved from their original home and place in a new environment. Yet we are willing to create new species and set them loose into the world without so much as a concern for what the impact on the environment might be? Once that grass spreads beyond the golf courses and invades the yards of peoples' homes, how are they supposed to kill it without killing their own grass. We are so quick to pass judgement on genetically engineering animals, but when it comes to plants (which can cause just as much damage to the environment, if not MORE) we are willing to modify them in any way possible and place them out into the world? It's sick. Any form of genetic engineering should be banned until more is known about it's effects and the ethics of it can be worked out.
So they can pour that weed-killing chemical with no fear of damaging the golf course. But, what about me? I haven't been genetically reengineered, I guess that too many chemicals around may affect me somehow.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Reminds me of Colleurpa Taxipholia, a genetically engineered version of seaweed for use in fishtanks to withstand different temperatures, and was superior to all other seaweed.
Only problem is that it escaped into marine life and is currently taking over many areas of the sea, killing all marine life in its path (cannot be eaten as it is poisonous to most). Because of its superior nature there isn't an easy way to stop its spread, and it continues to grow.
Sounds like a similar scenario anyways.
And look at it this way. If this grass spreads beyond control...everything becomes a golf course... SWEET
Basically two problems:
/Tobias
1. Modified grass spreads and become "Superweed".
2. Modified genes spread to other species, either by hybridization or vectors such as bacteria. (Agrobacterium tumefaciens as an example)
This is what opposers are afraid of.
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
I want a genetically-modified grass that:
(1) never needs mowing
(2) runs Linux
(3) fires warning lasers at door-to-door solicitors (may include the religious type)
(4) emits pheromones to attract gorgeous women
(5) each blade serves as an access point for a wireless network
(6) emulates all known video game consoles
(7) kills all insects upon contact
(8) blocks spy satellite scans
(9) makes julienne fries
The coolest voice ever.
I believe the environmentalists are more afraid that the mutant grass will become self-aware and begin to assimilate native grasses into some sort of "collective".
I'm a lefty environmentalist, and I oppose this, but not for the reasons you might think. I also work in biotech, and unlike many of my fellow environmentalists, I believe strongly in the potential of genetically-modified plants. There are an enormous number of applications that could be of significant benefit to humanity:
And instead they're concentrating on making golf courses greener? WTF? Golf courses will have weeds, and bare patches, and, you know, a little of bit of something that looks kind of natural. If you don't like it, fine, go play on Astroturf. I'm a lot more concerned about people being able to eat than I am about some rich guy's putting green.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I thought that regular lawn grass was already pretty resistant to weed killer. At least, the last time I put weed killer on a lawn, the weeds died and the grass didn't. So Scott is making a product that acts like normal grass.
Genetic modification is a tool. There are many, many advancements to be made by exploiting this new resource. It's new technology, people will be scared of it. The same was true with electricity.
There once was a fear of AC as opposed to DC, Edision wanted everyone to believe that AC was much too dangerous to be used. Of course...he had an ulterior motive, as the major provider of DC power. There may be some lessons from this which might apply to some aspects of the current debate over genmod crops.
...
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Well, suddenly the bull frogs started turning up in wet areas FAR from where they were originally introduced. No one knew that they could cover such long distances without water. Then they started eating all of the local wildlife that was smaller than themsevles: tarantulas, birds, other species of frogs, fish, etc.
1. Just build fences and keep them out, right? Wrong, the bull frogs learned to climb over the fences.
2.Posion them? How, when the poison will kill everything else too?
3. Bioengineer a poison that only affects bull frogs? On whom's dime, the taxpayers?
4. Kill them all with spears, guns, knives, and arrows? Tried that, night after night by dozens of volunteers: virtually no effect, the population held strong as ever.
But back where the bullfrogs came from, in the bayous of Louisiana, the alligators and birds that evolved alongside the frogs have no problem keeping their population in check.
Do you get the logisitical issue(s) of introducing new species into new environments (manmade or otherwise)? It is never easy to control.
I'm sure fire will still lick it pretty good. Until they start adding some of those redwood genes, it'll burn just fine.
I can understand environmentalist's concern that it is one mowing away from spreading (what happens when a golf course goes bankrupt?) so why not also neuter said grass? If it can't reproduce, it won't be going anywhere. There are already many varieties of grass that can't seed, reproducing through runners. A variety like that would not be susceptible to transplantation by birds carrying away seeds...
"We've been here since the 1970s. It would be un-American to be scared away," Harriman says.
Say WHAT?
I was fairly indifferent to both sides of the argument until I read that little gem at the end of the article.
What in the world does being American have to do with any of this? What, in Mr. Harriman's opinion, is considered "American"? The goal of making money at any cost, without losing much sleep over considering consequences to the environment or to the society? That's what he seems to be implying... I'm not American, but if I were, I'd probably be outraged at a fellow American making a statement like that.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
...if it was to escape onto public land, we wouldn't know how to control it.
Apparently, they have never seen a herd of sheep in action...
Uhura thought those tribbles were cute and harmless, until they overran the ship and ate all the grain. What will we eat when this relentlessly pleasant grass overtakes all our crops?
The human race will not end in a dark nuclear apocalyptic wasteland, but rather in a cheerfull, neatly-kept lawn, covering the entire land mass of the planet.
Slow down there, pal. Things are just moving too quickly. We can't adopt new technologies without testing them (they test them thoroughly, we just say that) and they're crossing animals and plants for frankenfood (though this only happens in the lab and never in production).
Yep, it's safest to just sit on our hands and do nothing. Oh, and let's keep Microsoft around, what dangers lurk in the dark corners of Linux?
Ned Ludd
Perhaps, but unlike SCO or MS FUD, this FUD has a basis in reality, or at least the Uncertainty and Doubt portions do: We are not certain what the environmental effects of this grass will be. We are not certain how other organisms will interact with it. We are not certain what large-scale effects on the ecosystem (ie, us) will have. Ecosystems are terribly, terribly complex and grass is a crucial part of them.
Because it's not that simple. They changed a gene that turns off sensitivity to a specific chemical in the weed killer. We don't know what else that gene change did. We don't know how it affects the grass's metabolism (or whatever you call the plant version of metabolism).
To put it in computer geek terms: it's like deciding to change a couple of variables and functions in your C library and recompiling, only imagine a C library that's about a trillion times more complex than libc. Could it work fine? Yes. Could it destroy your entire system? Doubtful, but conceivable. Could it have unforseen side effects? Almost certainly. Would you do it without large-scale, intensive testing? No. Would you do it without a damn good reason? Definitely not.
We haven't done the testing on this because we can't create a control ecosystem. And as much as I love golf, it doesn't count as a "damn good reason".
All's true that is mistrusted
By this reasoning, man would have never left the caves, developed agriculture, or gone into space.
Man did those things because the possible gains outweighed the possible pitfalls we could do a lot of things that would be incredibly stupid like kill half the worlds population with nukes, do you think we should? Technology!=progress, with great power comes great responsibility(and an even greater temptation to misuse that power)
In Soviet Russia Slashdot cliches use you
By an assistant greenskeeper: "The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff."
The annoying thing about this is that it is not engineered to be resistant to pests. It's engineerd to be resistant to Roundup, made by Monsanto. There are lots of other such "Roundup Ready" products, including canola, corn, and soybeans.
The result of this is that farmers and now greenskeepers can douse their fields and fairways with Roundup. The Roundup ready plants survives this chemical shower, and everything else dies.
The problems with this are:
(1) The environmental impact of all this (extra) Roundup being released.
(2) The fact that growers become dependent on Monsanto for Roundup. Monsanto is, in effect, genetically engineering conditions that will lead to a monopoly.
(3) The selective pressures that this will put on all the pests that Roundup is supposed to control. In the same way that staph bacteria have evolved reistance to antibiotics in hospitals, the increased use Roundup will probably lead to the evolution of Roundup resistant superpests.
Obviously Monsanto is more concerned with profiting than the long-term economic and environmental health of the country.
I'm not against genetic engineering per se, but this approach seems to be fraught with pitfalls.
Here in Australia (the second driest continent on Earth*), it is traditional to set lawnmower blades about 1 centimeter (just under 1/2 inch for those with 12 fingers) BELOW the surface of the soil. This results in "lawns" that are uniformly barren.
If this grass gets out of control, I propose a squad of Australian gardeners be sent to tackle the problem. Best part of this plan is that most Australians will work for beer**.
*Only Antarctica has less free water than Australia.
**As long as it isn't Foster's Lager. As the saying goes, "Foster's is like having sex in a row-boat: its as close to f@#king water as you can get"
A Saskatchewan farmer has been taken to court by Monsanto because his fields had some of their genetically modified canola. The canola seems to have blown in from neighbors fields and ditches. The case has gone to the Supreme Court of Canada but I haven't heard the outcome.
--RANT-- Monsanto makes SCO look like Boy Scouts. The sad thing is that lots of farmers support them and this makes them harder to fight. Let's put it this way; I wouldn't drink the milk in Florida because of the (Monsanto) drugs that get into it. Fining Monsanto has about the same effect as fining Microsoft.--/RANT--
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
Scotts does a tidy business in toxic chemicals. Got to keep the money coming in once the lawn is planted, eh?
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the strongest word is still the word "free"
Repeat after me: Agent Orange is in no way related to RoundUp.
Agent Orange is a mixture of 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (reference).
RoundUp is glyphosate: N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine (reference 1, reference 2).
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
No, it is not sick. It is progress. Humanity has been "genetically engineering" crops for many thousands of years. Previously we did it through selective breeding that took many tens of generations to get to the final product, but now we can do it in just a few generations in the lab. Corn is a grass. The orginal wild corn is not much different from the grass growing in your yard. Very small seed-kernels and a small yield. But the ancient Maya, Toltecs, Hopi, Azetcs and others "genetically" engineered it over many years into the Maize Corn that we eat today. It took them hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years to get a final product. We can do this over the course of a few years in a lab by isolating and encouraging (turning on) beneficial genes. Did you know that that thousands of human lives have been saved by the development of high-yield rice that simply involved encouraging it to grow with a short stalk? (short stalks do not sag and rot in the water).
Now I will agree that there are two kinds of genetic engineering and that one suits me fine and the other I find disturbing. I have no problem with isolating and encouraging naturally occuring recessive traits. I do have concerns about "transgenic" engineering that splices genes from another species (especially when we are talking about animals instead of plants).
Read the article again. The "problem" currently is that groundskeepers can't simply dump huge amounts of herbicide everywhere since the grass will die. This grass lets them dump huge amounts of herbicide everywhere to kill the normal weeds.
Yeah, I'm jumping for joy over this. I was just thinking the other day that there isn't enough herbicide being dumped on the ground right now.
All's true that is mistrusted
The methods of genetic engineering are entirely different. Completely novel genes (from entirely unrelated organisms or dreamed up in a lab) are inserted randomly into an organism's genome using methods that are far more complicated than simply mating two organisms together and looking at their offspring. These methods may insert a new gene into a previously working gene or its control regions, rendering it useless. Or the insertion into a control region may make a previously inactive gene active, or cause it to express itself at a different time during the growth cycle.
Using selective breeding I can make better corn. Using genetic engineering I can make corn express botulinum toxin.
Mod parent clueless.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
I think people have not yet realised the company's plan of profit.
1. Make genetically modified grass.
2. Wait until it is accidentally spread to rest of town's/city's lawns eg. wind.
3. Sue whole town/city for patent violation because there is no way their intellectual property aka the grass could have got into people's lawns without them stealing the seed. This is because mankind can control nature with pinpoint control. If we say the grass won't spread because we cut it short enough, then damn it, nature will fall in place whether it likes it or not.
4. Profit!
The sad part is given past court cases they would actually have a very good chance of winning their case in court...
Skinner: "Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend."
Lisa: "But isn't that a bit shortsited? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?"
Skinner: "No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards."
Lisa: "But aren't the snakes even worse?"
Skinner: "Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat."
Lisa: "But then we're stuck with gorillas!"
Skinner: "No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
A cross between Kentucky Bluegrass and California Sensimilla. Especially if I'm going to be playing 18 holes on it.
I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with your conclusion. You are correct that there are experts that know far more about the subject than we do. You are also correct about the AI researcher knowing more about AI than the secretary or mechanic. However, in both cases I think that the non-expert has a right to consider the possible consequences of a technology, and determine whether they feel the dangers outweigh the benefits.
There are always dangers to implementing a new technology, particularly one that may be difficult to purge if its consequences are undesirable. While I support the cautious use of genetically engineered plants, there is a real concern of loosing control of those plants if we are not careful.
The analogy to making changes to a C library are quite valid. When we make substantial changes to any system, we need to be careful to have a pretty good idea what the side effects might be. This is true of new code, of new medications, and of introducing new plants to an ecosystem. We shouldn't let fear of the unknown paralyse us, but neither should we dive headlong into unknown waters without first taking some precautions.
Atanamis
Man did those things because the possible gains outweighed the possible pitfalls we could do a lot of things that would be incredibly stupid like kill half the worlds population with nukes, do you think we should? Technology!=progress, with great power comes great responsibility(and an even greater temptation to misuse that power)
None of the changes mentioned were done by all humans at the same time. Groups started experimenting with them, and they were able to out-compete groups that didn't. There were plenty of similar developements which didn't work better than what was used in the past, but they didn't stick around because they didn't work. But it's not like anyone sat down and mapped out the possible gains and the possible pitfalls, and made a decision for all of humanity to switch to agriculture.
Unfortunately, genetic engineering is capable of introducing changes that affect everyone in the world. As such, the strategies that don't work have the possibility of negatively affecting everyone.
So, yes, this is a case where some amount of caution isn't unreasonable. However, while the world may be small enough that we can all affect each other, it's too big to expect that this sort of thing won't happen, whether one group likes it or not. It is a situation with a real possibility of disaster.
And just to clarify, I'm not against genetic engineering. I'm not anti-technology. It's an exciting time to be alive, with all the risks associated with that.
If history is any guide, it is protected, but not like you'd think.
Essentially, it sounds like Scotts is producing a "roundup ready" (rr) grass.
The scam works like this: Monsanto owns patents on the most widely used herbicide in the world (roundup). They also own patents on Roundup Ready crops (wheat, soybeans, canola...). They sell the seeds to farmers who can now safely spray their crops to keep the weeds down.
So lets say you own the farm next to a RR field and grow the same crop (but not a monsanto version of it). Natually, some seeds will find their way onto your property so your field will be contaminated. Next season you replant from what you produced last year - well NOW you have some rr crops.
Monsanto hires private investigators to tresspass on your property, take some of your wheat, soybeans, whatever, and take them back to their lab to test. If they find you have rr crops, then, my friend, you just got 0wn3d! That's right, farmber bob, they OWN YOUR CROPS! And don't think that being in Canada or Europe gives you immunity - for the most part, it doesn't. Monsanto is trying desperately to get it's GM seeds to propogate throughout the world so they'll be able to permanently extract licensing fees from farmers (that's right - you license their seed for a year, you don't buy it).
Having trouble swallowing that one? Try this on for size.
I don't see how changing the players changes anything. The rules are the rules and Scotts can do the same thing Monsanto does.
Lest you think this is coming from some wack-job leftie environmentalist, it ain't. I just think that Monsanto is every bit as evil as MS - even more because they're mucking about with the food supply - which means peoples LIVES!
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
Their closed-source version is a variant of better dog food.com where they don't just sell you the dogfood. The dog can only eat BDF.com dogfood *and* you only lease the dog *plus* you only can get poodles (and they'll sue you if poodle puppies show up in your neighborhood). The problem that Montanto is trying to solve isn't "how can farmers improve crop yields and reduce weeds?" Monsanto's problem is "How can we lock farmers into using our weedkillers?"
Think of it like a bug patch. Imagine we find a major vulnerability, solved by upgrading some software. The open source method might be to make that software available for people to patch into whatever software they're currently running. The closed source version would be to 1. Sell new software that works with the patch 2. Sell the patch, 3. Insist that all old software is dangerous and outdated and should never be used in business. (4. and then later on when a new worm comes out, a huge percent of programs can be hit all at once due to the monoculture).
With Andean potato farmers this is exactly what happened. You have farmers who've developed hundreds of different potato varieties over the years: buttery tasting ones, meaty tasting ones, ones that grow in drought / shade / various altitudes... and these potatoes could be susceptible to a particular pest (quite likely one or more of their varieties already had resistance: another story). A major North American company came in saying "Hey, our potato + pesticide combination is resistant to the pest. Buy both from us, then you'll have no problems. By the way our potato is patented- don't think about crossbreeding it." At the same time they launched a major advertising (FUD) campaign in major potato buying markets saying "Hey, our potato is the best most modern potato. Don't buy anything else." So farmers couldn't just patch their own potatoes- they had to buy into the product / product cycle upgrade of the NA company. Sounds familiar?
Or look at "golden rice." Who can argue with preventing blindness from vitamin deficiencies? Do you want Blind Babies??? But is upping the vitamin A content of rice the best method to get vitamin A to people? What about veggies which already contain high quantities of beta-carotene (yams? carrots? Other richly-colored veggies and fruits?). The royalty payments for Golden Rice could instead pay for a variety of other seeds. And if you do want to up the A content of rice, should people get to choose which varieties get upgraded?
And sometimes they're breaking standards while they're at it, (think like what VeriSign did recently with their redirect). For example, BT is a bacteria /toxin used by organic farmers for decades to kill certain insect pests. At the previous rate of use- as a spray- there was a very, very low probability of insects developing resistance. Decades of use hadn't produced it. Now that BT has been spliced into crop plants, the widespread planting of monocultures of BT crops means BT resistance is increasingly likely. As this happens the non-organic farmers can move onto other pesticides. But the organic farmers whose old standard- BT sprays- will also become useless have no backup. There was no system set up to compensate these farmers from their soon to be broken standard. Nor was their any "royalty" paid to these farmers who'd discovered BT in the first place.
You don't sound like you've paid much attention to the articles. There are already killer bees in California. I've paid a little attention to this because I'm allergic to bee stings, live in Texas, and go camping from time to time. They didn't come from Texas, they came from Brazil. Texas is just one area they've travelled to.
Calling them killer bees is a little misleading. It's not like they are taking orders from Osama and go out looking to kill people/animals. But the will aggressively protect their hive, and they have killed people. They will also reproduce with domestic honey bees (which are nomally fairly mellow little guys), and the aggressive gene's are dominate, so soon the entire hive goes from being regular bees to being a strain of AHB's - Africanized Honey Bees.
The link below will give some useful information, including the fact that they were reported in California 10 years ago. They aren't overrunning Texas, or anywhere else, to the point where people can't live there. But it does have an effect on normal beekeeping, on agriculture, and on people who just happen to stumble into the wrong place without realizing they are there.
In the current context: If the genetically modified bees hadn't escaped in Brazil roughly 50 years ago, then they wouldn't be a problem. But they did, and now they've spread quite far, with signs that the problem will continue to get worse. It's better to plan ahead than to simply assume "There isn't any problem with this." I don't have a strong opinion about the genetically modified grass - but I wouldn't write it off as a non-problem without more information and testing, either.
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/sep/stories/kbees.h tml
Great, now all they need to do is genetically modify humans, so that we don't get cancers and diseases from these weed killers.
Anything that can kill a plant, ain't good for humans, just look at agent orange, if you need an example. I'd rather live with weeds than die of cancer, myself.
Those can be a problem but the resistance is usually to only one or two kinds of herbicide. As far as I know there have been no tillage resistant plants released. (tongue deeply in cheek)
We are talking about herbicide resistant grasses.
So here's the worst case scenario:
"AIIIIEEEE!! My Roundup isn't working! We're all doomed! Now I will have to weed by hand! (Runs away in fear)"
Call me when they make a lawnmower resistant grass. Then I'll panic.