You never know what they'll come up with:
Friday August 7, 7:17 pm Eastern Time
Genetically engineered crops breed hardy weeds
WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Genetically engineered crops spread their new genes to nearby weeds, and the resulting hybrid weeds are just as strong as wild weeds, researchers said Thursday.
They said hopes that the nearby weeds would somehow inherit a weakness with the new gene, and perhaps die out, have been dashed by their studies.
They told a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Baltimore than plant breeders will have to find ways to stop genetically engineered crops from spreading their new genes to other plants.
Plant biologist Allison Snow of Ohio State University studied rape plants grown in Denmark. Rape is a very common crop, grown for canola oil. Canola or rapeseed oil is used in cooking, industry and to make soap.
Snow's team started with oilseed rape that had been genetically engineered to resist pesticides. They crossed this rapeseed plant, Brassica napus, with a weedy cousin, Brassica rapa.
There have been theories that when weeds cross-breed with genetically engineered plants, they will not be as healthy and strong as normal weeds. Snow found just the opposite.
Half the weeds inherited the resistance to the herbicide, and looked exactly like their truly wild cousins.
''By the third generation, the weeds that carried the gene for herbicide resistance looked exactly like normal weeds,'' Snow said in a statement.
Scientists know that weeds will inevitably cross-breed with related crops that have been genetically engineered, but have hoped it would not be a problem.
Herbicide-resistant weeds will create big problems for farmers, however.
''I don't like to paint this as an emergency or as a disaster waiting to happen,'' Snow said. ''I just think it's important to understand what we're doing when we create transgenic crops and delay the possible negative consequences, if not prevent them in the first place.''
There is a way around the problem, Snow said. The new genes that give resistance to herbicides could be inserted into the cytoplasm of plant cells -- the part surrounding the nucleus -- instead of directly into the nucleus, where most of the genes are.
DNA found in the nucleus travels far and wide in a plant's pollen, while DNA in the cytoplasm can only be passed on through a plant's seed.
''Some people don't even want to think about it and other people think it's a disaster. I think the truth lies somewhere in between,'' Snow said. |
