Genetically modified tomato seeds?

[me&thegals]

Interesting on the origins of Roundup! My husband swears corn and soybean plants developed it naturally when being administered increasingly higher doses of the chemical Now I can tell him how right I've been!

Another thing that bothers me about GMO is that, as far as I know, its effects have only been studied by the companies selling the seeds. It seems like history shows us so many times that it often takes a long time to see the effects of certain chemicals, technologies. I think Monsanto has had a couple doozies. I know you didn't work for Monsanto, they're just kind of my target for all venom I feel towards some parts of our agricultural system...

 

[jhm47]

Actually, the RR gene has been through many "tests" conducted by the FDA, and the US Dept of Agriculture, along with dozens of State colleges and universities.

The same goes for the Bt gene, of which there are now several being marketed. Some of these Bt genes are contained throughout the plant (roots, stems, leaves, pollen, etc.), and some are only contained in the leaves. They all work basically the same. They contain a certain protein that clogs up the digestive systems of the larval stage of insects. The original Bt gene only affected the larva of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). And, since butterflies don't lay their egg on corn plants, they were little affected. However, the corn borer moth, which lays eggs on corn nearly exclusively is the most impacted by it.

At this time, I would estimate that approximately 75% of the corn hybrids being planted today are Bt, and at least 50% are Bt + RR "stacked".

 

[silkiechicken]

Bt resistant crops have been planted in many areas in both the US and China. There are rules in the US that state that if you plant so many acres of resistant crops, you have so many acres of a trap crop so that any recessive genes in the bugs that confer resistance to the Bt toxin won't become a dominant trait in pests. From my limited knowledge, it seems to have been working just fine for over a decade. Being in research, although not in crop or soil sciences, there are TONS of labs running on independent grants that do research on transgenic crops, so it's not just seed companies spewing out affiliated data.

To my memory,glyphosate is less metabolically toxic than table salt when exposed at equal concentrations. Primarly because it doesn't affect any of our metabolic pathways.

I just read a review " Suppression of Cotton Bollworm in Multiple Crops in China in Areas with BT Toxin-Containing Cotton" by Zhao et al., and found it rather interesting.

Their main finding was that after nearly a decade of planting something like 3 million hectares of the Bt expressing cotton in China, not only has the cotton production become more efficient becuase crops were not lost, the need to use pesticides on ALL crops affected by the bollworm decreased. In the area of study, the bollworm affected multiple crops and by just planting one Bt resistant strain, crop yeilds across the board were up, and pesticide use across the board went down because there were less pests.

I've heard figures that say that every year, 80% of the crops in the world are lost to pests, disease, or other "natural" causes.

An interesting story we heard in seminar just this week was on blight resistance and celery. Apparently, celery crops were being affected by blight and to combat the issue, scientists developed a strain which was resistant. However, the chemical found in the celery turned out to react with UV light and resulted in anyone harvesting the crop that contacted the celery juices to get severe chemical burns on their skin. Guess what, these crops were created by SELECTIVE BREEDING of the gene that was ALREADY in the plant! However, I don't remember when this happened as it was just one of the things discussed in seminar.