🚀 go-pugleaf

Aunt Sally wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 23:01:50 +0200, marcus@myrealbox.com wrote:
> 
>>		
>>GM crops created superweed, say scientists
>>
>>Modified rape crosses with wild plant to create tough pesticide-resistant
>>strain
>>
>>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.
>>
>>Article continues
>>Unlike the results of the original trials, which were the subject of
>>large-scale press briefings from scientists, the discovery of hybrid plants
>>that could cause a serious problem to farmers has not been announced.
>>
>>The scientists also collected seeds from other weeds in the oilseed rape field
>>and grew them in the laboratory. They found that two - both wild turnips - were
>>herbicide resistant.
>>
>>The five scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the government
>>research station at Winfrith in Dorset, placed their findings on the
>>department's website last week.
>>
>>A reviewer of the paper has appended to its front page: "The frequency of such
>>an event [the cross-fertilisation of charlock] in the field is likely to be
>>very low, as highlighted by the fact it has never been detected in numerous
>>previous assessments."
>>
>>However, he adds: "This unusual occurrence merits further study in order to
>>adequately assess any potential risk of gene transfer."
>>
>>Brian Johnson, an ecological geneticist and member of the government's
>>specialist scientific group which assessed the farm trials, has no doubt of the
>>significance. "You only need one event in several million. As soon as it has
>>taken place the new plant has a huge selective advantage. That plant will
>>multiply rapidly."
>>
>>Dr Johnson, who is head of the biotechnology advisory unit and head of the land
>>management technologies group at English Nature, the government nature
>>advisers, said: "Unlike the researchers I am not surprised by this. If you
>>apply herbicide to plants which is lethal, eventually a resistant survivor will
>>turn up."
>>
>>The glufosinate-ammonium herbicide used in this case put "huge selective
>>pressure likely to cause rapid evolution of resistance".
>>
>>To assess the potential of herbicide-resistant weeds as a danger to crops, a
>>French researcher placed a single triazine-resistant weed, known as fat hen, in
>>maize fields where atrazine was being used to control weeds. After four years
>>the plants had multiplied to an average of 103,000 plants, Dr Johnson said.
>>
>>What is not clear in the English case is whether the charlock was fertile.
>>Scientists collected eight seeds from the plant but they failed to germinate
>>them and concluded the plant was "not viable".
>>
>>But Dr Johnson points out that the plant was very large and produced many
>>flowers.
>>
>>He said: "There is every reason to suppose that the GM trait could be in the
>>plant's pollen and thus be carried to other charlock in the neighbourhood,
>>spreading the GM genes in that way. This is after all how the
>>cross-fertilisation between the rape and charlock must have occurred in the
>>first place."
>>
>>Since charlock seeds can remain in the soil for 20 to 30 years before they
>>germinate, once GM plants have produced seeds it would be almost impossible to
>>eliminate them.
>>
>>Although the government has never conceded that gene transfer was a problem, it
>>was fear of this that led the French and Greek governments to seek to ban GM
>>rape.
>>
>>Emily Diamond, a Friends of the Earth GM researcher, said: "I was shocked when
>>I saw this paper. This is what we were reassured could not happen - and yet now
>>it has happened the finding has been hidden away. This is exactly what the
>>French and Greeks were afraid of when they opposed the introduction of GM
>>rape."
>>
>>The findings will now have to be assessed by the government's Advisory
>>Committee on Releases to the Environment (Acre). The question is whether it is
>>safe to release GM crops into the UK environment when there are wild relatives
>>that might become superweeds and pose a serious threat to farm productivity.
>>This has already occurred in Canada.
>>
>>The discovery that herbicide-resistant genes have transferred to farm weeds
>>from GM crops is the second blow to the hopes of bio-tech companies to
>>introduce their crops into Britain. Following farm scale trials there was
>>already scientific evidence that herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape and GM sugar
>>beet were bad for biodiversity because the herbicide used to kill the weeds
>>around the crops wiped out more wildlife than with conventionally grown crops.
>>Now this new research, a follow-up on the original trials, shows that a second
>>undesirable potential result is a race of superweeds.
>>
>>The findings mirror the Canadian experience with GM crops, which has seen
>>farmers and the environment plagued with severe problems.
>>
>>Farmers the world over are always troubled by what they call "volunteers" -
>>crop plants which grow from seeds spilled from the previous harvest, of which
>>oilseed rape is probably the greatest offender, Anyone familiar with the
>>British countryside, or even the verges of motorways, will recognise thousands
>>of oilseed rape plants growing uninvited amid crops of wheat or barley, and in
>>great swaths by the roadside where the "small greasy ballbearings" of seeds
>>have spilled from lorries.
>>
>>Farmers in Canada soon found that these volunteers were resistant to at least
>>one herbicide, and became impossible to kill with two or three applications of
>>different weedkillers after a succession of various GM crops were grown.
>>
>>The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three
>>herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically
>>engineered to be resistant to only one.
>>
>>To stop their farm crops being overwhelmed with superweeds, farmers had to
>>resort to using older, much stronger varieties of "dirty" herbicide long since
>>outlawed as seriously damaging to biodiversity.
>>
>>Q&A: What the discovery means for UK farmers
>>
>>What's the GM situation in the UK?
>>
>>No GM crops are currently grown commercially in the UK. Companies who wish to
>>introduce them face a series of licensing hurdles in Britain and Europe and
>>interest has waned in recent years amid public opposition.
>>
>>Other firms have dropped applications in the wake of the government field scale
>>trials that showed growing two GM varieties - oilseed rape and sugar beet - was
>>bad for biodiversity.
>>
>>The EU has approved several GM varieties and the UK government insists that
>>applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
>>
>>Where are GM crops grown?
>>
>>Extensively in the wide open spaces of the US, Canada and Argentina. In Europe,
>>Portugal, France and Germany have all dabbled with GM insect-resistant maize.
>>Spain plants about 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of it each year for animal
>>feed.
>>
>>What is a superweed?
>>
>>Many GM crop varieties are given genes that allow them to resist a specific
>>herbicide, which farmers can then apply to kill the weeds while allowing the GM
>>crop to thrive.
>>
>>Environmental campaigners have long feared that if pollen from the GM crop
>>fertilised a related weed, it could transfer the resistance and create a
>>superweed. This "gene transfer" is what appears to have happened at the field
>>scale trial site. It raises the prospect of farmers who grow some GM crops
>>being forced to use stronger herbicides on their fields to deal with the
>>upstart weeds.
>>
>>Is it a big problem?
>>
>>Not yet. Farmers in the UK do not grow GM crops commercially. If they did, then
>>the scale of possible superweed contamination depends on two things: whether
>>the hybrid superweed can reproduce (many hybrids are sterile) and, if it could,
>>how well its offspring could compete with other plants. Herbicide-resistant
>>weeds could potentially grow very well in agricultural fields where the
>>relevant herbicide is applied. Most experts say superweeds would be unlikely to
>>sweep across the UK countryside as, without the herbicide being used to kill
>>their competitors, their GM status offers no advantage.
>>
>>Some GM crops, such as maize, have no wild relatives in the UK, making gene
>>transfer and the creation of a superweed from them impossible.
>>
>>Is it a surprise?
>>
>>On one level no, gene flow and hybridisation are as old as plants themselves.
>>Short of creating sterile male plants, it's simply impossible to stop crops
>>releasing pollen to fertilise related neighbours. But government scientists had
>>thought that GM oilseed rape and charlock were too distantly related for it to
>>occur.
>>
>>The dangers of hybridisation where it does happen are well documented - experts
>>from the Dorset centre behind the latest research published a high-profile
>>paper in 2003 in the US journal Science showing widespread gene flow from
>>non-GM oilseed rape to wild flowers.
>>
>>Have superweeds surfaced elsewhere?
>>
>>Farmers in Canada and Argentina growing GM soya beans have large problems with
>>herbicide-resistant weeds, though these have arisen through natural selection
>>and not gene flow through hybridisation. Experiments in Germany have shown
>>sugar beets genetically modified to resist one herbicide accidentally acquired
>>the genes to resist another - so called "gene stacking", which has also been
>>observed in oilseed rape grown in Canada.
>>
>>� David Adam
>>
>>http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1535428,00.html
>>
> 
> Go organic, go veggie. Safest all round by far.

Lies!