Genetically modified crops pass benefits to weeds (Roundup Ready Weeds!)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nature.com/news/genetically-modified-crops-pass-benefits-to-weeds-1.13517

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Genetically modified crops pass benefits to weeds[/font]

[font size=4]Herbicide resistance could confer an advantage on plants in the wild.[/font]

Jane Qiu
16 August 2013

[font size=3]A genetic-modification technique used widely to make crops herbicide resistant has been shown to confer advantages on a wild form of rice, even in the absence of the herbicide. The finding suggests that the effects of such modification have the potential to extend beyond farms and into the wild.

Several types of crops have been genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide first marketed under the trade name Roundup. This glyphosate resistance enables farmers to wipe out most weeds from the fields without damaging their crops.

…

Few studies have tested whether transgenes such as those that confer glyphosate resistance can — once they get into weedy or wild relatives through cross-pollination — make those plants more competitive in survival and reproduction. “The traditional expectation is that any sort of transgene will confer disadvantage in the wild in the absence of selection pressure, because the extra machinery would reduce the fitness,” says Norman Ellstrand, a plant geneticist at the University of California in Riverside.

But now a study led by Lu Baorong, an ecologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, challenges that view: it shows that a weedy form of the common rice crop, Oryza sativa, gets a significant fitness boost from glyphosate resistance, even when glyphosate is not applied.

…[/font][/font]

For an earlier story:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/monsanto-superweeds-roundup

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Next up--Burdock, kudzu, creeping charlie & poison ivy.

Gee-wow. Maybe GM weeds will be able to resist the ravages of climate change too.

[nebenaube]

2. kudzu will rule the world!!!

I hope they are not inserting transgenic alleles to accelerate growth.

[niyad]

3. does this SERIOUSLY come as a surprise to anyone:

The finding suggests that the effects of such modification have the potential to extend beyond farms and into the wild.

[kestrel91316]

4. No shock at all to me.

[Nihil]

6. Not to anyone who pays attention - hence the need for GM proponents to spew FUD smokescreens.

Even most of the pro-GM boosters who accuse any opposition of being "Luddites" are only
too aware that the concerns are genuine.

It's a numbers game but unfortunately the equation is slanted away from the side of honesty:

Pro-GM minority + Pro-Profit_at_all_costs + Apathetic_ignorant_masses > Concerned_minority

[pscot]

5. Cool