Wild super-weeds
For the second time, genetically modified (GM) crops have been found
cross-breeding in the wild. The finding confirms anti-GM campaigners'
fears, but maybe not be a huge threat.
Meredith Schafer of the University of Arkansas looked for escaped GM
canola on roadsides in North Dakota, a hub of GM canola production.
At a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Austin, Texas,
this week, she reported finding it at 288 out of 631 sites; 80 per
cent were resistant to either Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide or
Bayer Cropscience's glufosinate. Two plants, just 0.7 per cent of the
total were resistant to both, a sign that genes from separate GM
fields had mixed in wild plants. Similar plants were found in Canada in 2001.
The crucial question is whether the genes will benefit the plants,
says Jim Dunwell of the University of Reading, UK. They will give
feral canola an advantage where those herbicides are used, but will
not protect them against other threats such as bad weather. "I don't
think it's particularly significant," he says.
(New Scientist, 13 August 2011)
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/08/
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