GMO Oranges? Altering a Fruit's DNA To Save It

biobricks writes "A New York Times story says the Florida orange crop is threatened by an incurable disease and traces the efforts of one company to insert a spinach gene in orange trees to fend it off. Not clear if consumers will go for it though." The article focuses on oranges, but touches on the larger world of GMO crop creation as well.

Comments

Re: nature and consumers

[dgatwood]

Show many ANY time in nature where plants have modified themselves with ANIMALS and FISH and then and ONLY then will I buy your bullshit, because in case you ain't been keeping up on current events they have been mixing everything from starfish to grasshopper into plants to increase yields and make them grow larger.

Happens all the time between animal and bacterial species when viruses attack, and to a lesser degree with plants. A virus damages the DNA of the cell, and brings with it DNA from whatever animal or plant produced it. And there are other mechanisms that can produce similar results. See Horizontal Gene Transfer for more info.

Re:nature and consumers

[Cyberax]

Show me a wild tomato that can grow without human cultivation and is as tasty as any modern tomato.

What? You can't do it? How about wheat? Or potatoes?

ALL of our current crops are genetically-manipulated wild types that usually can't survive in the wild.