GMO OMG the movie - Who controls the future of your food?

Rick, It is normal for the radishes to have 4 inches of the white root above. These radishes grow so fast that they do suppress almost all weeds. Here in Indiana you do not want to plant them before about July 20th as they are confused and some or many will go to seed and not develop the deep large root.

'tillage' is a trademark name. The ads tend to scare you into thinking that there is only one line that will work...not true. I get my seed from Fedco and they have to label them 'forage radishes', but they are the real thing too.

>> It is normal for the radishes to have 4 inches of the white root above.

Thanks, Indy. That one is an OP Daikon radish 'Minowase' from Hazzards, sold as a vegetable, but pretty good at digging into clay.

They say "sow summer or fall, 52 days". I agree with you: sowing in late summer is better than early summer where I live. Well, unless you prefer the seed pods to the roots. Hazzards calls these roots " low pungency," but they are much too hot for me. But the seed pods were tasty and just a little hot.

These volunteers are popping up in September which suggests they germinated around July.

I like for the plants to be 4 or 5 inches apart. Further apart is better if you have few weeds coming up with the radish. My, these things get huge where they have several inches of clearance...15 inches tall;15 inches across; and 3 inches thick in the root.

Speaking of "bad things we used to do", or "science gone wild" check out what Project Plowshare did in July 1962 at Yucca Flats.

Even worse than above-ground nuclear testing is shallow sub-surface testing. In this case, a nuclear bomb was lowered 635 feet down a mine shaft and then detonated.

"The blast displaced 12 million tons of soil, creating a radioactive cloud that rose to 12,000 ft (3.7 km). This radioactive dust cloud then floated hundreds of miles to the southeast, ..."

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-project-plowshare.htm

I think that can be used as an argument for either side of the GMO debate. One side would say "never trust scientists and public policy-makers when they tell you that something won't hurt you!"

The other side would say that even when there was a radioactive, quarter-mile crater 320 feet deep, either no human was demonstrably harmed, or a statistician might have been able to make a case that 1% of the lung cancers in that state in the next 5 years were NOT caused by cigarettes.

Horrendous disaster or barely detectable health impact? I'd say "both".

Life in the real world has enough REAL hazards that do "relatively little" lasting harm that focusing on remote hypotheticals is misplaced effort. I think that climate change deserves more concern. Certainly global hunger, disease, poverty, diminishing clean water resources and risk of wars are real hazards.

Probably the genetic diversity, ecological and financial risks associated with crop "monopolies" are greater long-term risks than the hypothetical risk of some long-term as yet undetected subtle harm caused by foods with ingredients from GMOs.

But not everyone agrees with that, to make an understatement. And even I agree with GMO labeling requirements. When people see that EVERY bit of processed food has "GMO ingredients", maybe they'll think about what it means. Or even eat some fresh fruit. It couldn't hurt.

Here is an interesting summary of the current status of science on GMO crops:

http://sustainablepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/ENSSER_Statement_no_scientific_consensus_on_GMO_safety_ENG_LV.pdf

Interesting input, greenhouse_gal. I'm looking forward to reading responses.

I attended a Master Gardener conference last week and one of the speakers was a Ph.D professor who spoke on GM. He told a story about Zambia refusing a shipment of 10,000 tons of corn (during a famine) because the US wouldn't certify it to be GM-free. The corn was to be used for food, not planting. He also stated that it cost about $250M and took about 10 years for a typical GM crop to be approved. He felt GM crops were safe.

I'd really like to hear more from knowledgeable folks, both on GM and "chemical" vs organic in general.

If you use Bt you are using an Organic Insecticide that causes insects stomachs to blow up. This is the the same insectide that is put into GMO corn, to help contol worms. So gardening Organically doesn't change the effects of this chemical. Chemicals can be synthetic or natural. I don't like the idea of it being spliced into the DNA of crops but the effect is the same.

Round up ready crops are only going to be an issue if you use Round up. If you some how have this seed the plants aren't going to be drenched in herbicide unless you do it yourself.

No Im not for GMOs just for a clear understanding. It is my understanding that GMO seeds are not available to the home gardener anyway.

The World Health organization has a very balanced overview of GMO crops and their potential risks and benefits.

http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/

That's a good summation, drobarr. Thanks for posting it.

Just saw this review of glyphosate impacts. Apparently it's really wreaking havoc in Argentina, where safe application practices are being ignored.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/roundup-scientists-birth-defects_n_883578.html

Thanks, drobarr. It seemed sober and reasonable.

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.

...

The GM products that are currently on the international market have all passed risk assessments conducted by national authorities. These different assessments in general follow the same basic principles, including an assessment of environmental and human health risk. These assessments are thorough, they have not indicated any risk to human health.

...

No allergic effects have been found relative to GM foods currently on the market.

...

Here's another article on Argentina. The reports of damage to embryos in lab research is also worrisome:

http://rt.com/news/monsanto-glyphosate-safe-argentina-597/

First, I want to say (again) that I'm not addressing the comments below to greenhouse_gal. I'm talking about the writers of the AP "report" and the "Monsanto Denies" article.

Were you able to find any citation so we could look at the study referred to? Not just the "AP report", but the study done by Dr. Carrasco.

I noticed this, and was curious to see what rationale they used to equate "injecting embryos" with what's happening in a field.

I know I'm decades out of date, but way back when, that would be the kind of thing you would do to cause abnormalities with something that was totally harmless by any other test you tried.

>> Molecular biologist Dr. Andres Carrasco, of the University of Buenos Aires, injected small samples of the chemical into embryos, ...

>> �If it's possible to reproduce this in a laboratory, surely what is happening in the field is much worse," Carrasco said.


I also noticed that the website assumes the point that (I thought) was under debate:

>> AP carried out interviews across Argentina with doctors and people who had suffered harmful effects from Monsanto�s pesticides.

I do want to gripe about a very minor detail: why do they call an herbicide a pesticide? Are weeds now called "pests"?

Or they are deliberately using any word that sounds scary and is likely to be recognized, no matter how unrelated it is to the facts they are "reporting".

I'm reading the link now, about the "AP report", to which I can't find a link either. I assumed that a "report" would have more facts and at least a pretense to some methodology.

What I see is that they ASSERT that the RU caused health problems, but no evidence other than "that province" has high rates of this or that medical problem over a period of (?a decade?) during which use of GM crops rose. That's incredibly lame.

EVIDENCE would be a correlation between occupation and disease rates, or distance of homes from fields, prevailing wind direction, and disease rates. Like, a dose-effect curve.

They say the GM crop usage in Santa Fe province increased, and claim a relationship to cancer rates in that province. (That's the logical flaw "after it, therefore because of it", but ignore that for the moment.)

Next ... am I misreading this? ... they say as if it was evidence for their claims:
>> in the neighboring province of Chaco birth defects have quadrupled

So the cause occurred in one province, and they seem to think that reporting an effect that occurred ELSEWHERE is evidence of a link? If they think that's evidence, their target audience must not have very high standards for logic.

I could use MORE logic than they are using, and claim they "proved" that planting GM soybeans in Santa Fe province protected them from birth defects. (I'm not6 claiming that, just pointing out how (excuse me) STUPID the article is about connecting evidence to conclusions. Calling it "stupid" is probably flattery - the reality is probably "deliberate manipulation and misleading interpretations".

>> Schoolteacher Andrea Druetta who lives in Santa Fe told AP that her children had been covered in pesticides recently while swimming in the garden pool.

I'd love to know what she meant by "covered by". Also, if true, did they have any symptoms afterwards? Any at all?

That's when I think about the real toxicity of the herbicides that were replaced by RU, and get impatient about wild claims and lack of evidence.

I appreciate their honesty in reporting the following, but it would seem to me to be evidence exonerating RU and condemning other (unspecified) chemicals, and working with the toxic ones without protection.

Yet the article or "report" is titled "MONSANTO's pesticides poisoning Argentina". (Let's ignore the fact that RU is an herbicide.) you have to read the entire article to get to the detail that "mis-using RU" is actually "making millions of liters of a cocktail of different (unspecified) chemicals". The artical thumps the drum of "GMO crops" but the EVIDENCE they offer is that the NON-RU chemicals (probably organo-phphate INSECTIcides, not even herbicides at all) do have the toxicity that everyone knows they have: neurological disorder.

Once agin I reach the same conclusion that I usually do when I follow up on articles that try to invoke "scientific studies" in support of GM fear-mongering: if this is their best evidence FOR their side, they are doing a good job of proving there IS no good evidence for their side.

(If they gave a link to the actual evidence and not just inflated and unsupported claims, maybe there IS something in their study that supports the side they have such obvious bias for).

Hiding the relevant fact in a paragraph at the very end shows they know it invalidates all their claims in the first 3/4 of the article. t least they had the integrity to include the one word "cocktail" which gives away the fact that their rhetoric is contradicted by their evidence.

>> Argentine farmhand, Fabian Tomassi, who worked preparing a cocktail of chemicals to spray crops for three years. He now suffers from the debilitating neurological disorder, polyneuropathy, and is near death.

>> �I prepared millions of liters of poison without any kind of protection, no gloves, masks or special clothing," he said. "I didn't know anything. I only learned later what it did to me, after contacting scientists.�

Good comments, RickCorey_WA. Like you. I do see a lot of appeal to emotion from the anti-GM/organic community with little reference to facts, tests, and research. On the other hand, there is a long history of products being released that eventually are proven to be damaging. This is true not only in agriculture, but in medicine and other fields.

The GM and climate debates offer an interesting contrast. Most (not all!) anti-GM folks are pro-anthropogenic global warming and they mock folks who ignore the "concensus" of science on global warming. Conversely, many pro-GM people cite scientific "concensus" that GM is safe and they mock anti-GM people for ignoring the consensus of science.

A quick note on pesticides: I believe that the term pesticide encompasses any agent that kills or controls a living thing, be it plant, animal, fungal, etc. "Herbicide" and "insecticide" are sub-categories of "pesticide" in my understanding.

All very good point, Willy. I never noticed the irony of disbelieving every scientist on the subject of GMOs, but believing them on the subject of global climate change.

>> on pesticides

I guess I had better update my own usage. I'm glad I deleted my rant about their "ignorance" for confusing herbicides with pesticides. (Duhh!)

>> appeal to emotion ... little reference to facts, tests, and research. On the other hand, there is a long history of products being released that eventually are proven to be damaging.

I try to remember to keep saying that - just because "one side" only cites totally flawed research, doesn't mean they're wrong. And a chorus of scientists unison-chanting "DDT won't hurt you (much)" doesn't make them right, either.

Back when I thought the anti-GMO position was 'we don't have enough evidence yet, so we should remain cautious", I was very sympathetic even though I didn't think human or animal toxicity was a plausible risk.

But Once I carefully read a half-dozen or so "studies" that allegedly "proved" things like "GMO causes leukemia", I lost all sympathy and patience.

It is still a form of 'argument ad hominem', but if their most visible publicists are (in my now-jaundiced view) deliberate propagandists who consistently stoop to misrepresentation, I'm willing to assume they HAVE no better arguments and I'll stop listening to them.

But I'm voting FOR the labeling of foods with ingredients made from GE crops.

At least I'm consistent in being angered by misrepresentation from either side: the pro-GM industries are spending tons of money to push half-truths and lies down our throats, and that strengthened my previous support for labeling. If I can do anything about it, liars will never prosper!

Corey ~ I do not need a "study" to prove to me that GM food will cause cancer. I would just rather not eat anything that have viruses and/or herbicide injected into them. It just does not even make common sense.

As well, the weeds are becoming more resistant and are growing even more tolerant of the herbicides designed to kill them. So they just use more and/or stronger herbicides which are being absorbed by our plants grown for human consumption.

Yet we are not allowed to see all that is in our foods. I have been staying away, as much as possible, from "processed foods". Yet there are so many more ingredients in our everyday common foods that are not on the label, because the law does not require it.

If the "science" showing that GMOs are harmless wasn't conducted by people with strong ties to the industry I'd feel a lot happier about it. I take it you discount studies like this one

http://gmojudycarman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Full-Paper.pdf

or this one

http://cattleindustry.blogspot.com/2012/07/gm-bt-176-corn-killing-livestock.html

And I still think that the fact that Consumers' Union preaches caution is impressive:

http://consumersunion.org/news/consumers-union-statement-on-new-long-term-study-of-feeding-ge-grains-to-pigs/

Yup, read the first one. That's the most interesting study I've seen. And i agreed with their ACTUAL conclusions: that if you look hard enough, you can find variations that go somewhat beyond normal statistical variation, and yes, more excruciatingly difficult, long term studies that look at every imaginable body and cellular change with tests more discriminating than are usually applied to anything would be nice.

But I'm not worried at all. Just interested. Exemplary study, long-term and expensive, except for the fact that they fed moldy GM feed and significantly less moldy normal feed.

Of course, I was led to it by following 24-point headlines screaming "scientific study proves GMOs cause leukemia"...

Notice the GM food had (unintentional) mycotoxins and some other toxin both showing that they were getting moldy. The non-GM food had none, or fewer and less, if I recall correctly.

Someone countered that the amount of mycotoxin and other toxin (_REAL_ serious toxins, like aflatoxin, not speculative or imaginative maybe-do-something-bad-someday substances ) were "within legal limits". The observed changes were so subtle that OF COURSE they could have been caused by something a slight as a "legal" amount of aflatoxin contamination (and other products of fodder being stored so it got moldy). Didn't they say they used all one batch of feed for the GM fodder, as if it were being stored somewhere for the entire lifetime of the study?

Also, they were not talking about people eating a diet with some foods with some GM ingredients. They were talking about pigs fed 100% GM food (BT, I think) for their whole life. Humans don't eat 100% BT corn or soy.

To find ANY differences at all in the pigs fed GM soy and corn (I think those were the foods), they had to do more detailed tests than are usually done in toxicology studies, by their own admission.

I accept their conclusion that the variations they saw exceeded expected statistical variations. It sounded like the stomach irritation was a "real" effect. I would be interested to see if it showed up in a long-term study with very detailed autopsies like they did, fed normal fodder with legal amounts of aflatoxin etc, compared to clean fresh fodder.

The ovaries that were enlarged enough to fall outside expected variation were also interesting. I wish there were more studies that went to such lengths, so we could see if variations like that showed up elsewhere, when you look for them.

The changes in cell morphology sounded to me more like they had some cell morphology assays developed that they were really proud of, threw those into the study, and yes found variations that no one else ever even looked for. Meaningful result or scientific gingerbread?

In all three cases, I agree strongly with their conclusion that more excellent studies of the sort they pioneered should be done, so we could learn whether this was a blip or two caused by uncontrolled circumstances, or a real but slight effect of feeding 100% GM corn or soy and nothing else for nearly a whole lifetime. Or if it was the mold having effects that no one else ever looked closely enough to find.

But my personal take-away is that they had to do more detailed autopsies than anyone ever does in tox studies, just to find anything. And they still were not smoking guns, they were stomach irritation (real), ovary enlargement said to be greater than statistical norm, and (maybe) some cellular morphology changes if you look hard enough.

That's the harshest study I've heard of "for" the anti-GMO side, and to me it sounds like "barely detectable effects" that Monsanto could have cited as "the pigs were healthy enough to pass any NORMAL test with no unhealthy effects detectable".

Also - "was it the BT or was it the mold present only in the GM batch of feed"?

I don't have time to read the others today in detail, but the middle one is typical of most articles I've read - assertions without any reference to a specific study. It sounds like some cows died, and a farmer decided to blame the feed.

Then many indignant assertions. it seems like, if the implication were true, every farmer feeding that kind of corn would have mostly dead cattle. And it would be obvious. But it isn't.

Is that kind of corn still on the market? If there's no [u]pattern[/u] of mortality associated with it, then scattered reports of bad things happening in one herd or another don't mean anything.

If I hadn't read so many obviously propagandist articles, I would have been curious enough to follow up more than a brief Google search. But there is no flood of reports complaining about this strain of corn.

I'm sure if I worked at it, I could write an article about bad things happening to herds in red-painted corrals. If there's a pattern, it's evidence. Otherwise, not.

why did "Cattle Industry" publish it? Maybe to inform their readers that they, too, can sue Syngentia. If there WERE a pattern, they would. And could start a class action lawsuit with everyone else feeding that strain of corn. But they aren't.

Here's another study describing the dangers of glyphosate:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/25/roundup-health-study-idUSL2N0DC22F20130425

Reuters was citing an article in Entropy - an open-access journal "devoted to the exploration of entropy in statistics and science." Note that they focus on entropy, not agriculture, toxicology or any other science relevant to this issue. And the impression that I got - just my impression - was that their policy was more about "open-access" than "peer-reviewed".

But form your own opinion about them:
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy

Note also the first word in the Reuters title: "Heavy use of herbicide Roundup linked to health dangers-U.S. study"

"Heavy" use of any herbicide would, but with herbicides other than RU, they could have show you a body count!

I read enough to see that it was the same article by Seneff that someone touted in some other thread. Back then, I took the time to follow through and read parts of the article and find some of her other work and primary research interests. She has no credentials, academic training or experience in toxicology. She's a computer scientist with a background in AI .

Samsel and Seneff did not conduct ANY studies to write this article. None, zero.

Her hobbyhorse seems to be esoteric aspects of entropy and inventing new terms like "exogenous semiotic entropy".

I think she realized that no one was taking her abstract ideas seriously, so she coupled them with things like "Roundup causes bad things" and got published in "open source journals", and got widely cited by credulous people and widely bashed by everyone else.


Tamar Haspel said this in the Huff Post:

Condemning Monsanto With Bad Science Is Dumb
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-haspel/condemning-monsanto-with-_b_3162694.html

"After reading the paper, I had to wonder -- who are Samsel and Seneff? Seneff is a Senior Research Scientist in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. Her advanced degrees are in electrical engineering. She describes herself as having "recently become interested in the effect of drugs and diet on health and nutrition." Samsel describes himself as an "Independent Scientist and Consultant," and, for the last 37 years, has run Anthony Samsel Environmental and Public Health Services, which does "Charitable community investigations of industrial polluters." I think it's fair to say they probably went into this with a point of view."

This anti-GM site wasn't very kind either.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/14764-comment-on-critique-of-samsel-and-seneff-glyphosate-review

I don't know this site's bias, but they dump really hard on this "paper":
http://www.examiner.com/article/bogus-paper-on-roundup-saturates-the-internet

Seneff and Samsel said:

"we show that glyphosate is a 'textbook example' of exogenous semiotic entropy: "

Now, that may be true, since Seneff invented the term and whether or not it means ANYthing is a question only she can answer.

Read the paper, it uses many very long words in scary ways, but in my opinion is unscrupulous hot air. I don't know whether Seneff is sincerely trying to prove something abstract and incomprehensible about AI and information theory, or just a publicity hound. But they way she cites other people's articles suggests she either doesn;t understand the subjects she has no training in, or plays very loosely with what might be relevant to her cliams.

http://www.mdpi.com/search?q=&journal=&volume=&authors=samsel§ion=&issue=&article_type=&special_issue=&page=&search=Search

Okay, interesting points, Rick. You'd think that if this were pseudo-science, though, that MIT would have vetted it better. Disappointing.

I dropped out of the GMO discussion a long time ago as i had no luck trying to reason with unreasonable people, but drop in here occasionally.

I have been surprised that no indignation has been expressed because Washington State rejected the GMO labeling during the recent election. So, it looks like the majority of voters realize that a simple label, not backed up by an extensive and expensive supervisory, testing and enforcement regime on both the growers and the goverment bureaucracy is worthless.

Ernie

No, it looks like Monsanto and the other companies that are heavily invested in GMO products raised many more millions of dollars to pour into the campaign than those who backed labeling. They were simply little people who wanted to know what was in their food and they lacked the dollars to mount a huge media blitz. What's interesting was that despite the enormous disparity in spending the vote was as close as it was.

OMG - having worked to develop GMOs in the past, I have always wondered when all the issues would finally get the publics attention. Glad to see folks are discussing and engaged.

aardvark7--Tell us more about your experiences in GM development.

Yes, aardvark, do tell!

>> You'd think that if this were pseudo-science, though, that MIT would have vetted it better. Disappointing.

I read in one place (that made it sound like a positive, innovative thing) that she has a "name" at MIT for making lots of use of "open source journals". In other words, if you can't get published elsewhere, these are somewhere in-between an online journal and a blog. Almost anyone at all can say anything at all, and their "peers" will publish it (online).

I don;t recall for sure, but it might have been Entropy, or might have been someone praising Entropy, that trumpeted something like "at last a journal that will print things that are not just written by mouthpieces for Monsanto".

(I think they published something that used fear about GMOs to publicist her own very abstract ideas about "exogenous semiotic entropy", whatever that is, if anything. I don;'t know whether they have an anti-GMO bias, anti-establishment bias, or any bias at all. But they are not very selective about asking their authors to support their claims!)

I'm NOT holding up Monsanto itself as any kind of saint of source of truthful info, but there is no conspiracy of scientists everywhere to lie for them. I'm sure there are some researchers who are biased pro-GMO, for good and/or bad reasons.

There are also writers and websites (and maybe some "open source journals") that are predisposed AGAINST GE crops and RoundUp, for good and/or bad reasons ... but lately I've read mostly too-obvious propaganda from the "anti" side.

I keep reminding myself that just because some point of view attracted a bunch of people who will say anything to get published, does NOT make their point of view wrong. They just are not producing any reasons to suggest that it is RIGHT. Yet.

Good points, Rick.

I suppose I sound schizophrenic and as if I don't believe anything I read. Those aren't COMPLETELY true!

It's just really hard to do "good science" when the thing you're trying to detect is certainly subtle and long term, and may not even exist.

And the small amount of good science that IS done despite the cost and long-term nature and difficulty is then reported by biased and somewhat unscrupulous people on both sides who think they know what's best for everyone and wants to make decisions for them or browbeat them into agreement. Some publicists simplify the technical results grossly ... like "this proves there is NO risk" or "GMOs cause XYZ".

Wasn't there a movie titled "It's Complicated"? Well, it is!

I understand the conflict between people who want to eat food grown to the "organic" standard (call it "no 'cides and compost-not-fertilizer") and people who trust that enough herbicides and pesticides can be washed off "industrial food" to make it safe, or safe enough". In my mind, that comes down to a conflict between costs and productivity on one side, and (totally reasonable) concern about 'cide residue and long term soil health on the other. those two side can argue reasonable facts and positions at each other.

But when it comes to GE crops, I think both sides have weaker positions. One side can't "prove a negative", all they can prove is that no one has yet shown plausible evidence of health risk. So "pro-GMO" is weak if consumers don't want it in everything they eat until it is proved safe to an almost impossible degree.

The anti-GMO side is weak because they still haven't found any evidence that any GM crop does any harm to health. How can they dismiss the productivity and economic benefits when foods made form those crops pass every test that any other food ever had to meet? Or how can they be against anything that lets farmers use less of the known-very-harmful 'cides?

I wish "the marketplace" would give people more options of paying as much as it takes to get organic food, which I guess is already GMO-free.

Right now, in the USA, that might exclude almost every kind of processed food. WA tried to pass a GM-labelling bill, but it was voted down after a media blitz claiming it would be hugely expensive and unfair.

i think if they had passed that law, 80% of the population would have woken up a few months later and said "what do you MEAN we're already eating GM ingredients!!!!!!! Then the "parallel paths" for non-GM ingredients would start to come into existence so companies could market boxes that said "No GMO ingredients".

Unfortunately, money buys ads and ads buy votes.

Here's an interesting article about a University of Illinois corn field trial that found that a non-GMO variety outproduced its GMO counterparts by 3 to 10 bushels per acre.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1598160

What I find especially suggestive is that the company that produced the hybrid in question developed it to address demands for non-GMO export grains or consumer demand for meat, poultry and dairy products in regional food markets. "Dairymen seem to be particularly intent on feeding non-GMO corn silage to their herds," the developer commented.

http://www.spectrumseed.com/sites/default/files/spectrum_article-divinerd_102813.pdf

So it looks as though the demand is building. There have also been incidents of China rejecting corn shipments because of GMO varieties.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/19/china-corn-gmo-idUSL2N0J31QG20131119

I do understand that there is a technical difference between GM and hybridization, but I hope I'm not the only one to detect at least a little bit of irony in someone producing a hybrid corn because they reject the idea of GM products. :«)

Hybrids have been with us for ages - it's nothing more than cross-breeding in a natural manner. Current dog breeds were created that way, as well as many other animals and vegetables. GM products use gene splicing and combine organisms that could never cross-breed in the real world.

Still hoping that Aardvark will weigh in on his or her experience in the industry.

Like I said, I understand the two processes aren't exactly equivalent--GE is much more sophisticated and can accomplish what normal hybridization could never do (I freely confess to being creeped out by crossing two widely different species, say, a bacteria and a plant)--but in the end, both are just genetic manipulation. As for being "natural", I am equally creeped out by hairless breeds of dogs and cats that were bred "naturally". For that matter, Chichuahuas seem a bit unnatural, too. (Relax, that was just a cheap joke).

I don't like hairless dogs either, but breeding them isn't opening the kinds of Pandora's boxes that GM flirts with. If a hybrid isn't viable or has other negative aspects, it usually doesn't persist. So there's a natural attrition which occurs.

That is interesting. I wish they had said what insecticides and herbicides they used with their non-GMO corn.

I see this:
"produced 3 to 10 more bushels per acre when compared to nationally known GMO corn hybrids"

The varieties in the trial produced between 230 and 270 bu/acre, so 3-10 bushels is 1.2% to 4% more productive.

I also saw this:

“There are a few key considerations to make the most of a hybrid’s potential, and this includes rotation,” Odle says. “Crop rotation and mode-of-action rotation are critical to slowing the development of difficult-to-control weeds and resistant insects.”

It makes sense to me that one alternative to GMO insect-resistance and RoundUp tolerance, (other than falling back on REALLY toxic tradicional insecticides and herbicides), is non-chemical pest management. Isn't what Odle said one aspect of Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?


When an efficient lab technique was discovered for splicing "whatever" DNA into plant cells, it changed hugely what scientists could do to genes and genomes. Instead of just crossing two existing plant varieties, and selecting from the resulting RANDOM crosses, now they can read, write, edit and inject DNA nucleotide sequences almost at will. They can pluck any gene sequence from any organism, or draw on libraries of synthetic DNA sequences. Pandora's Box is wide open.

They figured out how Agrobacterium normally injects its own bacterial DNA into plant cells (it has some sneaky plasmids, or circular DNA segments) that can SPLICE THEMSELVES right into the plant genome. In nature, that just produces warts or galls (technically "plant tumors", I think).

So genetic engineers hijacked this "natural, organic" process of sneaky plasmids to let them efficiently inject DNA into plant genomes ... but now they can inject ANY DNA sequence they can contrive.

That let them use all the GE methods they've been inventing for bacteria and viruses, since around 1960. They can use recombinant DNA methods to grab genes from other species, other genera, even other Kingdoms. They can splice in synthetic sequences that were built up a nucleotide at a time from scratch. They can use gene sequencing to read exactly what any existing DNA sequence is, then use editing methods to change it ("synthetic mutations"), and polymerase chain reaction to "write" new DNA sequences and multiply them.

Power tools. "With great power comes great responsibility." Or, at least, the ability to do many good things or make many big mistakes.

This is all true, Rick. I thought that the comment about "yield drag" was interesting, too. I had to look it up.

Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know that the GE process had to be that roundabout. I guess that at least some traditional varieties [u]will[/u] be preserved, even if for no other reason than the GE labs' need for them!

Funny that very old corn varieties should be MORE tolerant of tissue culture than the highly tweaked modern hybrids. I guess they got fussy and demanding of the conditions they were optimized for.

http://agbiosafety.unl.edu/education/backcross.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELISA

P.S. I meant to say, in my previous post, that all the biochemical methods and knowledge of DNA sequences in bacteria, viruses and multi-cellular creatures that have accumulated since 1960 let genetic engineers perform non-random changes where they can partly predict that a certain gene is highly likely to affect certain traits. That's one of the main things that makes GE practical.

If they had to breed "with their eyes closed" and just hope that some useful gene would cross from one plant to another, they could work for centuries and find nothing. Instead they can go to a gene library and pull out a half dozen things that ought to have SOME potent effect related to what they want to meddle with.

P.S.

Genetic engineers have tried to synthesize new genes that would make more efficient enzymes or more efficient biochemical pathways. They assumed that they could do better than random selection because they "knew what they were trying to achieve".

Nope.

In every case, natural genes were much more effective than anything they could tweak or invent from scratch.

Now they mainly try to find better existing genes to steal from, and maybe make small changes or borrow "a little from here and a little from there".

This is a very interesting article from the magazine Scientific American -

"Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?
Scientists must ask corporations for permission before publishing independent research on genetically modified crops. That restriction must end."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research