This article doesn't make the distinction between plant growth and plant reproduction. The article makes it sound like plants almost always grow and reproduce around genetically similar specimens, when in nature this doesn't always happen. Many plant species have chemical blocks which prevent pollen from fertilizing ovules within plants which are too genetically alike. When you think about it, it makes sense because genetic diversity would be devastated if genetically similar plants always reproduced with one another.
I would like to know where the genetically modified seeds are coming from exactly. The real advantage to using seeds which the crop has yielded is that plants that aren't fit to survive in their environment will die off and the more resistant will continue to reproduce and make new seeds and successive generations of crops. If you stop using the seeds which are found in the crops natural environment, you run the risk of crops being wiped out by changes in environmental conditions that the laboratory produced seeds can't handle. Additionally, if the genetically modified seeds are too similar in genetic make up, a virus, parasite or insect could completely destroy a crop that lacks the right amount of genetic diversity.
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This article doesn't make the distinction between plant growth and plant reproduction. The article makes it sound like plants almost always grow and reproduce around genetically similar specimens, when in nature this doesn't always happen. Many plant species have chemical blocks which prevent pollen from fertilizing ovules within plants which are too genetically alike. When you think about it, it makes sense because genetic diversity would be devastated if genetically similar plants always reproduced with one another.
I would like to know where the genetically modified seeds are coming from exactly. The real advantage to using seeds which the crop has yielded is that plants that aren't fit to survive in their environment will die off and the more resistant will continue to reproduce and make new seeds and successive generations of crops. If you stop using the seeds which are found in the crops natural environment, you run the risk of crops being wiped out by changes in environmental conditions that the laboratory produced seeds can't handle. Additionally, if the genetically modified seeds are too similar in genetic make up, a virus, parasite or insect could completely destroy a crop that lacks the right amount of genetic diversity.