Are you anti-GMO? Read this. Actually, even if you are pro-GMO, read it.

[BacktoCricaddict]

To distract from the sad, angry Covid posts:

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/science/crops-wheat-barley-naturally-genetically-modifying-themselves-for-decades-study-969012

It turns out crops have been genetically modifying themselves for decades.  New study finds that grass crops such as wheat and barley have a habit of borrowing genes from neighbouring species to make them stronger.  Wheat, rice, barley and other common crops routinely steal genes from neighbouring plant species to make them stronger, according to a new study that is likely to feed into the controversial debate about genetically modified (GM) crops.  Although ‘lateral gene transfer’ has been shown in fungi and algae before, this is the first time it has been demonstrated in ‘grass’ crops.  These crops are able to bend the rules of evolution by borrowing genes from their surroundings to give them a competitive advantage.  The stolen genetic secrets allow them to grow faster, bigger or stronger and adapt to new environments quicker, although it is not yet clear how the process works.

-----------------------------

My notes:

• All sweet potatoes have stolen genes from a bacterium.  Before that happened they had spindly, inedible roots.  But by stealing genes from bacteria, they are able to grow into massive starchy, delicious, edible roots!  So, DNA from one species became part of the DNA from a distant species, fundamentally changing it.  That is nothing but GMO - done by nature.

• 10% of the human genome is made of sequences that came from viruses.  

 

Moving DNA from one species to another is perfectly natural.  

 

Other aspects of the GMO debate are all discussed in various threads here and I am not going to rehash them.    

[ravishingravi]

This is an important pièce. I never thought much about GMO until I had a chance to go abroad. Now, I m even more confused about it. 

[coffee_rules]

21 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

To distract from the sad, angry Covid posts:

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/science/crops-wheat-barley-naturally-genetically-modifying-themselves-for-decades-study-969012

It turns out crops have been genetically modifying themselves for decades.  New study finds that grass crops such as wheat and barley have a habit of borrowing genes from neighbouring species to make them stronger.  Wheat, rice, barley and other common crops routinely steal genes from neighbouring plant species to make them stronger, according to a new study that is likely to feed into the controversial debate about genetically modified (GM) crops.  Although ‘lateral gene transfer’ has been shown in fungi and algae before, this is the first time it has been demonstrated in ‘grass’ crops.  These crops are able to bend the rules of evolution by borrowing genes from their surroundings to give them a competitive advantage.  The stolen genetic secrets allow them to grow faster, bigger or stronger and adapt to new environments quicker, although it is not yet clear how the process works.

-----------------------------

My notes:

• All sweet potatoes have stolen genes from a bacterium.  Before that happened they had spindly, inedible roots.  But by stealing genes from bacteria, they are able to grow into massive starchy, delicious, edible roots!  So, DNA from one species became part of the DNA from a distant species, fundamentally changing it.  That is nothing but GMO - done by nature.

• 10% of the human genome is made of sequences that came from viruses.  

 

Moving DNA from one species to another is perfectly natural.  

 

Other aspects of the GMO debate are all discussed in various threads here and I am not going to rehash them.    

I had read in a recent geography textbook, the archeological history of crop technology has ever been about growing stronger crops. Crops about 2000 years ago were yielding less but were nutritious for human consumption. But by mixing different crop varieties (from different geographical regions) , while seeding, the crops have been found to have evolved much differently (yielding more but less nutrients, resistant to pests etc). This kind of explains why farmers of yore did it. 

Edited April 24, 2021 by coffee_rules

[BacktoCricaddict]

10 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

I had read in a recent geography textbook, the archeological history of crop technology has ever been about growing stronger crops. Crops about 2000 years ago were yielding less but were nutritious for human consumption. But by mixing different crop varieties (from different geographical regions) , while seeding, the crops have been found to have evolved much differently (yielding more but less nutrients, resistant to pests etc). This kind of explains why farmers of yore did it. 

Not always the case.  

[BacktoCricaddict]

14 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

This is an important pièce. I never thought much about GMO until I had a chance to go abroad. Now, I m even more confused about it. 

Ask away.  What is confusing?  

[BacktoCricaddict]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/agriculture/the-world-is-too-dry-and-hungry-to-snub-genetically-modified-crops-tech-ceo-says/

 

For nearly two decades Bioceres — listed in New York and headquartered in Rosario, a river city that’s Argentina’s crop export hub — has been developing both genetically modified wheat and soybeans to resist the droughts that are becoming more frequent from the Americas to Australasia. It’s also investing in a company that inserts animal genes into plants to increase protein content, a bet on the growing market for substitute meats.

A new generation of drought-resistant GM crops would help to put a floor under prices and mitigate the volatility of recent months, Trucco said.

Bioceres is already in talks to convince millers and food manufacturers in Brazil to use its GM wheat strain as it also seeks clearance in other corners of the world, including the U.S., drought-racked Australia and Asia.

[Clarke]

I'm reminded of this 

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798920/

[ravishingravi]

On 4/25/2021 at 12:04 AM, BacktoCricaddict said:

Not always the case.  

Lay man question. Should I or should I not spend on bio or organic ? 
 

 

[coffee_rules]

3 minutes ago, ravishingravi said:

Lay man question. Should I or should I not spend on bio or organic ? 
 

 

It depends

[BacktoCricaddict]

4 minutes ago, ravishingravi said:

Lay man question. Should I or should I not spend on bio or organic ? 
 

 

No.  But that has nothing to do with GMO.  So, hijack-alert :-).

 

PS: One could grow GMOs organically.  

Edited April 27, 2021 by BacktoCricaddict

[gattaca]

On 4/23/2021 at 9:49 AM, BacktoCricaddict said:

To distract from the sad, angry Covid posts:

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/science/crops-wheat-barley-naturally-genetically-modifying-themselves-for-decades-study-969012

It turns out crops have been genetically modifying themselves for decades.  New study finds that grass crops such as wheat and barley have a habit of borrowing genes from neighbouring species to make them stronger.  Wheat, rice, barley and other common crops routinely steal genes from neighbouring plant species to make them stronger, according to a new study that is likely to feed into the controversial debate about genetically modified (GM) crops.  Although ‘lateral gene transfer’ has been shown in fungi and algae before, this is the first time it has been demonstrated in ‘grass’ crops.  These crops are able to bend the rules of evolution by borrowing genes from their surroundings to give them a competitive advantage.  The stolen genetic secrets allow them to grow faster, bigger or stronger and adapt to new environments quicker, although it is not yet clear how the process works.

-----------------------------

My notes:

• All sweet potatoes have stolen genes from a bacterium.  Before that happened they had spindly, inedible roots.  But by stealing genes from bacteria, they are able to grow into massive starchy, delicious, edible roots!  So, DNA from one species became part of the DNA from a distant species, fundamentally changing it.  That is nothing but GMO - done by nature.

• 10% of the human genome is made of sequences that came from viruses.  

 

Moving DNA from one species to another is perfectly natural.  

 

Other aspects of the GMO debate are all discussed in various threads here and I am not going to rehash them.    

Forcing DNA change vs change from nature is different isn’t?

[BacktoCricaddict]

1 minute ago, gattaca said:

Forcing DNA change vs change from nature is different isn’t?

If that were the case, we should be hunting/gathering because we have been selecting for traits that nature would never have selected.

 

Corn in nature vs corn selected by humans for 1000s of years:

 

 

The knock against GMO was that nature would never swap genes between species.  Strike that now.  

Edited April 27, 2021 by BacktoCricaddict

[BacktoCricaddict]

Every time I buy a watermelon, I think of its origins and how humans have altered it over the millenia to make it palatable.  This picture is worth a million words.  At the bottom left corner is the original, wild ancestor of watermelon - this is the way nature "intended" for it to be.  But humans chose the traits that are appealing to us and specifically bred and propagated those genotypes.  Today, we have this:

 

 

While not "GMO" in the sense of genes from other species being used, humans have no doubt altered gene combinations to artificially select and propagate what we want and value in these fruits.  In the early to mid-1900s, we also found ways to not just select, but induce random genetic changes and then select the results that we liked from these changes.  By the mid 1990s, we knew how find which genes make which traits and move them within or across species - which is also something nature does all the time (as shown earlier in this thread).    

 

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-are-watermelons-from

Edited May 19, 2021 by BacktoCricaddict

[Jimmy Cliff]

 

This will end well .

[BacktoCricaddict]

15 minutes ago, Jimmy Cliff said:

 

This will end well .

 

Glad you're on board!!  

[gattaca]

@BacktoCricaddict so should we buy organic ? Organic doesn’t use artificial fertilizers so even with GMO seed that should better ?

[ravishingravi]

Binge watching Vandana Shiva with raging pandemic. Deadly combo.

 

 on

[BacktoCricaddict]

Just now, gattaca said:

@BacktoCricaddict so should we buy organic ? Organic doesn’t use artificial fertilizers so even with GMO seed that should better ?

Not necessarily.  There is nothing wrong with artificial fertilizer.  Without it, you and I may not be alive today - ag productivity has skyrocketed since the introduction of artificial fertilizer supporting twice as many people as we could without it.  

 

https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-people-does-synthetic-fertilizer-feed

 

The big problem is not synthetic fertilizer.  Rather, it is the over-use of fertilizer.  Only 15% of applied fertilizer is actually absorbed by crops and the rest causes environmental problems.  The same thing would happen even with equivalent amounts of non-synthetic (organic) fertilizer.  In fact, some environmental impacts can be worse in organically fertilized fields.  

 

 

 

The real solution is precision agriculture.  Like drip irrigation can minimize water waste, precision application of synthetic fertilizer can do the same with pin-point application of fertilizer.    

 

Another point that organic advocates like to prop up is that they don't use synthetic pesticides.  But they do use natural pesticides like copper sulfate, pyrethrin, azadirachtin (neem extract) etc.  The real argument should not be "synthetic" vs "natural."  The origin of the chemical does not matter.  The toxicity matters.  Nature can make some really nasty, toxic chemicals and many of the natural pesticides used are more toxic than their synthetic counterparts (the vice-versa is true too).  Where I think organic scores more points in India is in having less post-harvest pesticide use.

 

Finally, to your point about GMOs, yes, GMO seeds can be grown using organic methods.  But you cannot label it organic because organic advocates will not allow it.