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GM Crops Create Herbicide-resistant "Superweed"
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article GM crops under test in the UK have cross pollinated to weeds, giving them the same resistance to herbicide as the GM crops. The article also mentions that this has been reported as occurring in Canada, which like the US is well past the test stage and allows widespread use of GM crops. What's worse, in Canada crop rotation has conferred multi-herbicide resistance to some of the weeds!"
"Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact."
Your assumption requires a survivor. We're talking about tailor-made chemicals designed to kill things.
If there were going to be a survivor, it'd be in the non-GM fields, where farmers would be less willing to use herbicides for fear of damaging the crop. The entire point of these GM food strains is to allow farmers to use herbicides much more than before.
"I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods"
Then you don't understand what "controlled environment" means.
Two different species are geneticaly incompatible to produce a viable offspring. In a rare case two closely related species are capable to creating offspring which is usually not able to reproduce.
Just resistance because of stupid use of herbicides and pesticides is more likely. When using herbicides and pesticides, it is important to keep a healthy population to overgrow the by herbicides affected population. The change is pretty large that the new survivor is maybe strong against the poison, but weak compared to the original plants. This has been studied, and it is shown that by spraying 90% wiht pesticides or herbicides, and leave 10% of the original population untouched, the poison tends to be effective for a longer period (up to 10 years longer on the same pest). The only issue is, is that 10% of the harvest needs to be sacrificed to the pest.
In the end, every pest gets immune.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Please get a clue.
How did this guy get modded up? Granted I may disagree with him, but really where is the insightful part?
Certain species of plant have been able to crossbreed in the past (especially grasses) ...
Wheat (a grass) is a prime example of this. The wheat of today isn't the wheat of 7,000 years ago. It has, in time, been crossbred with various other grasses and taken on some of their qualities.
There are many different varieties of wheat, today, due to those cross-breedings. You can buy seed that will grow in colder climates ("winter wheat")... seed with certain resistences...
[... and here I thought my "Plant Production" class would never see any use]
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Here's the Wiki, they've got it explained pretty well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Well, the parent is just wrong. I'm a former botany student with an emphasis in molecular biology and genetics. With animals, you can't usually get unrelated species to crossbreed (but even that's not absolute). With less specialized organisms, well, the rules are a lot less strict. Bacteria, for instance, swap genetic material across species lines all of the time, and often will have specialized "sex organs" for that purpose. Plants aren't quite so loose as that, but they can, and do, regularly cross species boundaries to some degree, and even manage to pull off viable reproduction when a cell division fails at the growing tip (doubling the chromosome count, and in effect generating a new species.) In addition, many weeds are crucifers, related to the rape (canola) plant, making that particular crossover especially likely. This is a real problem, recognized by real scientists.
Next time you think you have something to contribute to the discussion, please take a moment to hit wikipedia and make sure you're slightly correct.
There's no such thing as completely different species being able to "cross breed".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver
That is one wierd and whacky school of business you ent to there.
May the Maths Be with you!
Just another thing to grab attention or attract readers. As has been pointed in other comments most weeds can't cross pollinate and certainly corn, beans, and wheat, aren't going to cross with purslane. Any time you spray the same chemical over and over there is a chance one of those plants is going to survive and that is the plant that will distribute the genes. Is it a super plant? Only if we can take what makes it stronger and translate that into plants we need. "Weed" is a loosely used term as weeds in certain parts of the world are collected in others. Don't the Japanese love the Dandelion?
Except in many cases you the consumer are prevented from having the information that would allow you to make that decision:
Link
You're using her as bait, Master!
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
To repeat myself, the "super" weeds are no more harmful than non-super weeds. They cannot perform the plant equivalent of running faster than a speeding bullet, leaping over tall buildings or wearing tights and cape. In fact, if you ran an "all-organic" farm that used no herbicides whatsoever, the "super" weeds would be exactly as annoying as non-super weeds. Opponents of the use of herbicides should be thrilled at this development since it will help destroy the economic advantage that herbicide using farms have over organic farms.
"In other words since they didn't have funds to do the gene-sequencing proof, so their arguement is invalid."
I didn't say the argument was invalid. I said it was a supposition. Since all weeds acquire resistance to all herbicides over time by natural evolution, you must first eliminate these natural causes before you can claim that the resistance is artificial. Sequencing a genome for a known gene is actually quite inexpensive so I am suspicious that they don't appear to have done so. Of course, this could just be a result of the Guardian's poor science reporting.
"Herbicide resistant crop plants using radiation and mutagenic chemicals?"
This is plant breeding 101. Plant breeders select from all available variations for the characteristics they seek. To increase the pool of variation they intentionally mutate the genome of test populations using mutagens. Since around 1910, Bis (2-chloroethyl) sulfide or Mustard gas, and related chemicals have been routinely used to increase the pool of variation. After WWII, radiation was used to the same ends.
Virtually, every plant you have ever eaten in your entire life has been through at least one generation of random mutation. Practically, you have consumed thousands of unknown randomly mutated genes. It is a matter of some amusement to me that so many people are terrified at the prospect of GM plants, which have specific and well defined alterations, but who calmly accept plants created with pre-GM methods that contains hundreds if not thousands of completely unexamined and untested genes.
"I think it's the weeds getting the "super" genes and spreading rapidly"
Well again, the only genes that the "super"-weeds can acquire from GM crop plants is herbicide resistance. Once they spread out from the fields where herbicides are used they lose any selective advantage and must compete on equal terms with the non-super weeds. So, without the presence of the herbicides, the weeds are not super, they are Clark Kent weeds.
"The concern I think is more of the GM plants' genes getting out in the wild and causing havoc in other ecosystems;"
Just to repeat, without the presence of the herbicide, the GM plants lose their selective advantage, so, no herbicide, no going wild. Looking at the problem more broadly, we have been altering crop plants for literally centuries. In the last century, we have artificially created genes through accelerated mutation, yet in all that time we have never seen a case of either runaway domestics plants or harmful gene transfer to a pest or neutral species.The explanation for this is simple: We alter crop plants to serve our ends. The genes we create in doing so puts the plants at a competitive disadvantage. This puts the plants at a competitive disadvantage outside of the protected domestic environs. The same disadvantage will accrue to any other species that picks up the domestic genes.
Herbicide resistance hurts organic and traditional farmers too.
The bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is used as a biological pest control agent to protect crops from caterpillars; unfortunately this was noticed by the GM companies, who engineered the Bt toxin gene into their crops. Guess what: it didn't work quite as well as the bacterium.
Result: Bt toxin-resistant caterpillars. Great work, guys.
"The rep pointed out that all 'leftover' crops are considered weeds, and to just use another herbicide to prevent the spread."
That sounds nice and simple. Reality is rarely as simple.
FTFA:"Farmers in Canada soon found that these volunteers were resistant to at least one herbicide, and became impossible to kill with two or three applications of different weedkillers after a succession of various GM crops were grown.
The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one.
To stop their farm crops being overwhelmed with superweeds, farmers had to resort to using older, much stronger varieties of "dirty" herbicide long since outlawed as seriously damaging to biodiversity."
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Until recently, all humans had been eating 100% organic for many thousands of years, thank you very much.
Until recently the population of the Earth was a few million. Modern agricultural techniques (aka green revolution) were developed as a response to the need to feed populations in the billions. GM will be needed to feed populations in the 8+ billion range.
It was the first result that came up when I did a Google(monsanto farmer). If you haven't tried Google before, I highly recommend it.
From the linked page:
I've heard Percy Schmeiser speak. He didn't sound anything like how you described him.We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
from Wikipedia:
:-)
Essentially, a part of Schmeiser's canola crop, grown from seed he had bred over many decades, was accidentally contaminated with Monsanto's GE canola, likely by seed escaping from passing trucks. Schmeiser discovered the crossbreeding, collected the seed, planted it the next year, and harvested that crop. Both the case, and Monsanto's ultimate victory, were widely misunderstood. In fact, the infringement finding solely concerned the fact that he had knowingly replanted the crossbred seed he had collected. The court did not impose punitive damages on Schmeiser, as may have been expected in a patent infringement case, and the decision did not absolve Monsanto of responsibilty for genetic contamination, or even consider that aspect. The case did cause Monsanto's aggressively litigious tactics to be highlighted in the media over the years it took to play out.
Not that I defend Monsanto's motives, but if this was the article to which you refer, you're spreading FUD. I hate FUD as much as "devient corporations(tm)". Let them hang themselves, there's no doubt they don't need your PR to do it.