GM crops created superweed, say scientists

[midnight armadillo]

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Monday July 25, 2005
The Guardian


Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.

The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the government's three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.

The new form of charlock was growing among many others in a field which had been used to grow GM rape. When scientists treated it with lethal herbicide it showed no ill-effects.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,,1535428,00....

[BlueEyedSon]

1. I'm shocked, i tell you...SHOCKED!

[dusmcj]

2. GM is perfectly safe and will not spread into the biosphere

There is absolutely no possibility that modifications to one genome could spread uncontrolled into the greater gene space and affect the heredity of other species.

Without profits, wealth itself would be impossible.

[Trillo]

3. What is industry's liability for this? nt

[JohnnyRingo]

4. Dammit....I thought it was about something else

Hahahaha

[MindPilot]

8. Yeah we need to put the OP on ignore

for posting misleading subject lines.

[midnight armadillo]

12. Ha ha

I must admit, that alternate reading of the headline never occurred to me!

[dennisnyc]

5. a superweed strain was also found in the US this summer

the article lists, Canada, Argentina and Germany as having had similar issues.

This is a HUGE problem! Why is it so difficult for americans to see the harm to themselves when they are killing so much other life on the planet?

Monsanto is guilty!

[slackmaster]

6. Superweed?

[MindPilot]

7. That was exactly what went through my demented little mind. n/t

[Kolesar]

9. Do you realize you posted the same response...twice?

it's cool, though

[MindPilot]

10. So how do they know the herbicide resistance is due to GM?

Don't plants become resistant to herbicides just like some bacteria become resistant to antibiotics? There are dandelions and crabgrass in my front yard that I suspect would survive a thermonuclear fireball, so a plant that ignores a herbicide isn't surprising. I'm not defending GM crops at all, I'm just questioning that as the cause.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. It seems the most probable cause.

When you see half-eaten mouse next to a cat, you don't check to see if there's an eagle in your back yard. These plants have gone straight to full resistance, in a field where a resistant relative was grown earlier. Naughty kitty.

[PDJane]

13. GM crops are NOT harmless.

pollen from GM crops have done a fine job of killing monarch butterflies and lacewings, and potato crops have poisoned ladybugs. This kind of die-off of insects tends to damage bird populations, as does the change in the kinds of weeds that grow between the cultivated rows. Birds tend to eat the seeds of broad-leafed weeds. Those weeds tend not to grow in GM fields.

Here in Canada, contamination from GM crops is so widespread that we have farmers suing over the use of those crops. The trouble is, of course, that the contamination can last up to 16 years after the one GM crop. There is cross pollination with weeds all the time, and the seeds that fall from the original GM crop grow as herbicide-resistant weeds in the next crop.

There is also damage from the kinds of toxic chemicals that GM crops are modified to withstand, and those chemicals are getting more and more toxic. Roundup, for instance, has been reported to cause premature births and possible increased cancer risks.

Genes from modified crops can also transfer into soil bacteria, and we have no research on the results and implications of that transfer. Some GM crops can produce their own pesticides, and those “Bt” crops can kill beneficial insects, create pesticide tolerant insects, and put pesticide into the soil, where it can bind with clay and remain stable for months or years.

GM crops include a corn that produces human sterility, and while that may be a wonderful tool for reducing the population, we don't know enough about how these crops affect the ecosphere to be fooling around with them in open fields!

[NickB79]

14. Monarch butterflies are dying from deforestion

The pollen of BT-producing corn was fed to lab monarch butterflies at rates far in excess of what they would encounter naturally. When fed real-world rates, their mortality rates were in line with normal mortality rates. In the meantime, massive areas of Mexican forest that monarchs overwinter in is being destroyed every year through illegal logging and grazing. Mexican troops have been deployed to protect these areas recently.

"There is also damage from the kinds of toxic chemicals that GM crops are modified to withstand, and those chemicals are getting more and more toxic. Roundup, for instance, has been reported to cause premature births and possible increased cancer risks."

As opposed to chemicals such as atrazine, whose toxic effects are far, far worse than the Roundup that is replacing it, and that takes far longer to decompose in soil and groundwater than Roundup? Roundup is not perfect, but it is leaps and bounds above what it is replacing, thanks in no small part to the use of GM crops resistant to Roundup.

"Genes from modified crops can also transfer into soil bacteria, and we have no research on the results and implications of that transfer. Some GM crops can produce their own pesticides, and those “Bt” crops can kill beneficial insects, create pesticide tolerant insects, and put pesticide into the soil, where it can bind with clay and remain stable for months or years."

You do know that the BT gene inserted into GM crops was originally isolated from naturally occurring, soil-dwelling bacteria, don't you? BT is only lethal to insects when ingested, and most beneficial insects feed on other insects, not crops.

"GM crops include a corn that produces human sterility"

I have got to see a link for this, as I've never even heard of a scientific journal reporting on a sterility-inducing corn strain before.

[ecoalex]

15. Why didn't the mention Round Up?

The herbicide they are mentioning is round up ready canola. For those who don't know 95% of Canola is GMO.
Ggyphosphate , aka round up is a protein disrupter, it inhibits the plant from forming proteins, and affects warm blooded animals like man.Don't believe round up is benign it is not.Cultvation rotation mulching systems, interplanting eliminates the need for herbicides.

[NickB79]

18. I didn't say Roundup was benign

I said it is far, far better than the atrazine and other herbicides it is replacing. I grew up on a farm, and it was drilled into me at a very early age that most of the chemicals we used were highly toxic. My dad would wear knee-high boots, elbow-high gloves and a mask when filling up the tanks with atrazine.

[ecoalex]

16. Look up Terminator Technology. Monsanto has a corn that cannot make viable

seed.Other crops too .

[NickB79]

17. Terminator technology prevents the spread of GM genes

Isn't that something you should support? The GM crops then can't escape into the environment. However, I have yet to hear of any crops being used commercially that incorporate it.

The danger of Terminator seeds is that they could damage organic food producers by sterilizing their crops. Thus, I support legal recourse: if a farmer's Terminator pollen blows into an organic farmer's fields, they should be allowed to sue for damages. There are many areas, however, where there are no organic farms, such as much of the Great Plains, where Terminator technology would be feasible to use. Or, you could simply use the Terminator technology in non-airborne pollinated crops, and surround them with a buffer strip of non-Terminator crops of the same species.

[skids]

19. Not necessarily.

Who's to say that in a cross-species polination like this the plant won't get other GM mods but not take up the terminator gene? The only thing it's really protecting is the profits of the seed engineering company.

[Odin2005]

20. Some of the anti-GM rhetoric is bizzare.

A plant strain bred to be toxic to insects will be just as deadly to butterflies as a stain where the trait was inserted, the only differnce is how the trait got in the genome. Both are just as likely to spread the trait to wild populations. It is the corporations that are abusing the technology we should be going after, not GM foods themselves.

BTW, it is possible that the trait spread to the charlock by viruses, which can accidently transfer a stretch of DNA from one organism to a totally unrelated one, instead of by interbreeding.

[skids]

21. Geez.

Remind me not to catch the bird flu. I wouldn't want to start growing feathers

[FloridaPat]

22. Sounds like * is running Monsanto too.