Round-Up Ready Coca Plants

goneutt writes "Wired reports that an herbicide resistant breed of the coca plant has been found in Columbia after years of government spraying. It also appears that the process happend via selective breeding rather than gene manipulation, but it's an outside possibility that it was engineered. What does this mean about drug control policy and the extensive use of one herbicide repeatedly. Does this point the way of the future for other weeds?"

Comments

Colombia

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Colombia, not Columbia.

Re:Sheesh, history likes to repeat itself

[LothDaddy]

The development of antibiotic resistance can be much different from that of herbicide resistance because of the nature of the resistance. That is, for some antibiotics, bacteria "simply" obtain a plasmid containing a gene for resistance. Other times it's identical; mutation and selection. Bacteria have a benefit in that they reproduce like crazy, dividing ever 20 minutes under optimal conditions. That much mitosis will result in relatively frequent mutations, and more chances for resistance. Plants on the other hand, have life cycles that last weeks or more, making development of resistance a much slower process. Also, many of the herbicides are active on multi-sites (enzymes, whatever) in the plant while antibiotics typically only target one enzyme of function (e.g. ribosomal activity).

To my knowledge, most herbicides are effective for years, and glyphosate (Round-up) has been no different. In fact, I've only heard of one other putative instance of naturally developing resistance to Round-up. With all that's sprayed in the US to control our annual herbaceous weeds, I find it unlikely that resistance developed naturally in a comparatively slow reproducing plant such as coca.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if someone created GMO coca. There is enough money in the crop to support such efforts.

I'm a plant pathologist, however, and my experience is with fungicide resistance, so take this as you will.

Re:Is it..

[pla]

Actually, it is extra potent since you get the added benefit of putting all the herbacide that the plant has absorbed right up your nose!

I'll give this one "funny", but certainly not "insightful".

Glyphosate has very close to no effect in humans, acting by inhibiting EPSP synthase (which mammals do not have).

Or, put another way, you can safely use it to kill weeds in your vegetable garden.

Re:Sheesh, history likes to repeat itself

[thparker]

To my knowledge, most herbicides are effective for years, and glyphosate (Round-up) has been no different. In fact, Ive only heard of one other putative instance of naturally developing resistance to Round-up. With all thats sprayed in the US to control our annual herbaceous weeds, I find it unlikely that resistance developed naturally in a comparatively slow reproducing plant such as coca.

I hate to say RTFA, but RTFA. The author specifically went to Colombia to determine whether this resistant plant existed and to try and determine whether it was genetically-modified. He did find what appeared to be Roundup-resistance coca plants and had them tested at a DNA lab.

They found no evidence of any tampering. They specifically looked for evidence of the gene and the process used to develop Roundup Ready soybeans that we use in the U.S. They said that while it was possible that another way had been found the modify the plant, it was highly unlikely given an already known method.

The author's ultimate conclusion was that the plants had been selectively bred. Colombian farmers apparently often sell and trade clippings from the hardiest plants and have created a large, ad hoc breeding network.

So yeah, you're probably right. This probably couldn't have occurred naturally. But that's not what this article is about.

And no, I'm not a plant pathologist or a geneticist, just some guy who read the article. For whatever that's worth.

tp