GE eucalypts again - idiots

[Guest reville]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s745443.htm

While i dont think GE is any more harmful than other products in terms of end use i do have a problem with GE modification of such a promiscuous genus, especially in its home country where the disruption to native ecosystems could be much more severe.

The Flat topped yate is one of my favourite gums and a source of an extremely hard and beautiful timber.

Its also threatened by the growing lowland salinisation of its habitat in WA, and its from the South East not the South west BTW.Poor research to begin with is not a good sign.

Introducing genes to help it cope with salinity would be a noble aim but this?

making them avoid flowering and saying this is good for wildlife?

Australian wildlife depends very much on the biomass generated as based on Eucalypt pollen and nectar - the loss over the growing cycle to the ecosystem would be significant, especially if the genes did jump and started affecting already threatened non GE stands.

This species makes some of the besy Honey ive ever tried.

Its good they can use it to study how euc genes work but there should be a total ban on GE planting of it in WA due to unacceptable risk. If it is going to be used it should be outside Australia like in the mediterranean and North Africa where they are exotic crops and dont have several mamal, a dozen birds and hundreds of endemic species of insect dependent on them.

We already have vast Biological deserts unfit for native wildlife in the form of Pinus and Bluegum plantations. We dont need any more.

[Auxin]

"Southerton said some transgenic gums may need to be rendered sterile, to prevent their transgenes from escaping into native forests and causing potential and unforeseen ecological disruption. The obvious way of doing this is to insert genes that prevent flowering, stopping transgenic plantation gums from cross-pollinating with trees in the wild."

Hmmm, your right I see the problem coming. If they insert a gene to impede reproduction sooner or later the gene will be disrupted by any of a dozen routes and it will make pollen and seeds. If they disrupt a gene seemingly essential in reproduction sooner or later the genome will take an alternate biochemical pathway that doesnt need the gene and it will make seed and pollen.

I'm all for GE research when its done properly, problem is no one does it properly. But after we destroy this planet we should have enough data to avoid some of the same mistakes on the next one (assuming we are lucky enough to find the next one).

[Guest reville]

I think it might just be the Cosmic catch 22

If you dont look after your firts one you wont get time to find another..

[Darklight]

Heard a report from a local scientist ( no, haven't seen the source doccos ) that a fungus resistant eucalypt ( can't remember sp ) was planted routinely as part of state forest plantations.

As a result the fungus resistent gene was transferred to the surrounding wild populations in National Parks, conferring an adaptive advantage. Normally the proportion of that sp in the wild was 10% of total sp, but once the fungal resistence was widespread in the general population, the proportion rose to 30% over fifteen years

This is soft data, and requires checking. But it is exactly the sort of thing which is entirely possible- GM or no. GM, IMO makes the potential worse, and again IMO no GM affected cells should be allowed to leave the laboratory

[nabraxas]

it's all very sad. a technology that promises so much, used responsibly- in the hands ov some ov thee most corrupt, profit driven, press manipulating companies ever formed. i only have to mention the name Monsanto; but it's those friendly folks at Novartis(manufacturers ov ovaltine) that really take the piss. they have developed & patented a method for turning off plant's immune systems, which they expect to use in almost every crop on earth. great.

[Darklight]

Originally posted by nabraxas:

those friendly folks at Novartis (manufacturers ov ovaltine) that really take the piss. they have developed & patented a method for turning off plant's immune systems

Is that the Terminator gene?

[nabraxas]

i don't think so. as i understand it, the tterminator is a monsanto gene inserted into all seed they sell, which turns off the reproductive cycle, so no new seed will be produced- claimed to make gm crops less likely to spread, but in reality only useful in keeping farmers tied to monsanto.- this is exactly the same 'reason' novartis is pushing- give farmers greater control(bullsh*t). the crops they want to put this gene into includes, but is not limited to-barley, cucumbers, tobacco, rice, chillis, wheat, bananas, tomatoes, apples, pears, strawberries, beans, lentils, cotton & tea.

[MrBumpy]

"claimed to make gm crops less likely to spread" -- isn't there a current case of this not working...with a farmer finding a crop on his land that was resistant to pesticide...so he was selling the plants, and is now being sued by monsanto for selling their patent plants....at least, thats what I thought I got told in a plant biotechnology lecture this year.

-bumpy

[nabraxas]

monsanto is an EVIL company please please please goto http://www.frot.co.nz/sift/monsanto.htmhtt.../forum/513.html http://www.evilsite.org/evil/Monsanto/

In a landmark victory for corporations heavily invested in genetically engineered foods, on March 29 a Canadian judge ruled that farmer Percy Schmeiser of Bruno, Saskatchewan must pay $105,000 to Monsanto for illegally growing the company's genetically engineered rapeseed, from which canola oil is made. But Schmeiser says he never planted Monsanto's seeds. "How can somebody put anything on someone else's land, then claim it's theirs and say, 'We'll take it. We'll sue him. We'll fine him'?" he asks.

In 1995, Monsanto put on the market a rapeseed that had been engineered to be immune to its Roundup Ready herbicide. This means a farmer can spray the herbicide over a planted field and kill all the weeds growing there, but not hurt the crop. The company sells the rapeseed- about half the rape planted in Saskatchewan in 1999 came from Monsanto seeds-but keeps the rights to the DNA itself. Thus, rather than save seeds from last year's crop to use this year, as many do, and as Schmeiser traditionally has done, farmers must buy new rapeseed from Monsanto each year, and allow the company to inspect their fields.

Schmeiser, however, never bought Monsanto's rapeseed. He'd never gone to the meetings Monsanto held for farmers to extol the benefits of genetically engineered foods, and he had no idea that finding Monsanto's rapeseed on his farm might make him in any way liable. However, having grown rapeseed for more than 40 years, he knew something was amiss when he sprayed Roundup Ready around the electricity poles at the edge of his farm and it failed to kill the oilseed rape plants growing there.

Schmeiser figures the seeds came from his neighbor's fields, which had been planted with Monsanto's seeds, via wind, pollen drift and bees. "You can't control it," Schmeiser says. "It might end up 10 miles, 20 miles away. It's all over the place, it cross-pollinates."

It came out in court that Monsanto hired a Saskatoon private investigator (from a firm founded by former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers) to trespass onto Schmeiser's and other farmers' lands to obtain rapeseed samples. Then, a Monsanto representative secretly approached the Humboldt Flour Mill where Schmeiser brought his harvested seed for cleaning, and asked for a sample for DNA testing. The sample was found to contain Monsanto's patented DNA.

Monsanto's lawyers did not care how the seeds arrived on Schmeiser's land. Monsanto sued Schmeiser for patent infringement, asking the court for all the profits from his 1998 rapeseed crop, the return of "all seeds or crop" containing the patented genes, punitive damages for illegally obtaining the seeds, and the company's court costs. Monsanto justifies its actions by stating there are farmers who might be cheating and saving seed, or borrowing a bit of seed from neighbors.

Schmeiser was just one of more than 1,000 farmers that Monsanto had investigated, according to the Guardian of London. Rick Weiss reports in the Washington Post that Monsanto "sponsors a toll-free tip line to help farmers blow the whistle on their neighbors. The company also has placed radio ads broadcasting the names of non-compliant growers caught planting the company's seeds. Critics say those tactics are fraying the social fabric that holds farming communities together."

Unlike hundreds of similarly accused North American farmers who have reached out-of-court settlements with Monsanto, Schmeiser refused to settle and instead fought back. "I never put those plants on my land," he says. "The question is, where do Monsanto's rights end and mine begin?"

Schmeiser does not see why he should be penalized for a natural accident. But this recent court ruling means that farmers must now accept liability for any genetically engineered seeds that end up on their land. "If you have a patent you should be able to control it," he says. "My many years of developing canola strains in organic farming are now ruined by this contamination."

this is just one example from thousands!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by nabraxas (edited 20 December 2002).]

[This message has been edited by nabraxas (edited 20 December 2002).]

[This message has been edited by nabraxas (edited 20 December 2002).]

[This message has been edited by nabraxas (edited 20 December 2002).]

[Auxin]

"It came out in court that Monsanto hired a Saskatoon private investigator... to trespass onto Schmeiser's and other farmers' lands to obtain rapeseed samples....

Then, a Monsanto representative secretly approached the Humboldt Flour Mill where Schmeiser brought his harvested seed for cleaning, and asked for a sample for DNA testing."

I dont know about canada, but if that happened here (USA) all evidence from trespassing and stealing seed would be supressed, as would the sample obtained from the flower mill without the permission from the owner of the grain (without those two bits of evidence there would be no case). Moreover the farmer could countersue monsanto for trespass with criminal intent, and two counts of theft of private property. If I was on the jury I would find in favor of the farmer.

No wonder I never moved to canada, trespassing and burglary is legal if your a corporation, but pollen falling on your land is against the law.