. 24/7 Space News .
A Crop Containment Strategy For GM Farms

There has been serious opposition to genetically modified agriculture both in the United States and abroad, coming from concerns about "foreign genes" escaping from GM crops, crossing with and contaminating other crops and wild species, and disrupting the ecosystem. Photo courtesy AFP.
by Staff Writers
New Brunswick NJ (SPX) Jun 11, 2007
Plant geneticists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, may have solved one of the fundamental problems in genetically engineered or modified (GM or GMO) crop agriculture: genes leaking into the environment. In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Rutgers Professor Pal Maliga and research associate Zora Svab advocate an alternative and more secure means of introducing genetic material into a plant.

In GM crops today, novel genes are inserted into a cell nucleus but can eventually wind up in pollen grains or seeds that make their way out into the environment.

The two researchers at Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology argue for implanting the genes into another component of the cell - the plastid - where the risk of escape is minimized. Plastids, rarely found in pollen, are small bodies inside the cell that facilitate photosynthesis, the basic life process in plants.

"Our work with a tobacco plant model is breathing new life into an approach that had been dismissed out-of-hand for all the wrong reasons," said Maliga. "Introducing new agriculturally useful genes through the plastid may prove the most effective means for engineering the next generation of GM crops."

Skeptics had claimed that the approach was ineffective, based on 20-year-old genetic data showing that 2 percent of the pollen carried plastids. In the new study, Svab and Maliga found plastids in pollen 100- to 1000-times less frequently. This is well below the threshold generally accepted for additional containment measures.

The agricultural community worldwide seems to be embracing GM crops because the technology has the potential to deliver more healthful and nutritious crops, and increase crop yields with less use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

A "News Focus" story in the May 25 issue of the journal Science reported that genetically modified crops are flourishing worldwide, including in six European Union countries. "Last year (2006), 10 million farmers in 22 countries planted more than 100 million hectares with GM crops," it said.

There has been serious opposition to genetically modified agriculture both in the United States and abroad, coming from concerns about "foreign genes" escaping from GM crops, crossing with and contaminating other crops and wild species, and disrupting the ecosystem.

Pursuing the approach elucidated and advocated by the Rutgers researchers' findings may allay some of these fears and deflate the more vociferous arguments.

Svab and Maliga acknowledge that different strains of tobacco may produce plastid-carrying pollen at different frequencies, possibly accounting for some of the discrepancy between the old genetic data and the new. They emphasize that it will be important that any new crops that are developed be selected for low plastid pollen.

"We expect that there are nuclear genes which control the probability of plastids finding their way into pollen, but we have the tools that can be used to identify those genetic lines in every crop that will transmit plastids only at a low frequency," Maliga said.

Email This Article

Related Links
Rutgers
Farming Today - Suppliers and Technology



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Study Predicts Grim Future For European Seas
Plymouth, UK (SPX) Jun 11, 2007
Their models developed during a 2.5M euro EU-funded research project have predicted dire consequences for the sea unless European countries take urgent action to prevent further damage from current and emerging patterns of development. The project coordinator, Professor Laurence Mee, Director of the Marine Institute at the University of Plymouth said "Europeans are just beginning to wake up to the fact that the area of their seas is bigger than the land and that it is already seriously degraded.







  • Vignette Helps NASA Make Giant Leap To The Moon And Beyond
  • Star Trek Fans Beam Into Canadian Wild West
  • Fourteen Space Agencies Sign Joint Exploration Agreement
  • Science Subcommittees Focus On Ensuring Health And Vitality Of NASA Workforce

  • The Viability Of Methane-Producing Microorganisms In Simulated Martian Soils
  • Taking The Opportunity To Check New Driving Capabilities
  • THEMIS Marks A Milestone In The Imaging Of Mars
  • HiRISE Releases Thouands Of New Images Of Mars Via New Website Viewer

  • Delta 2 Launch To Launch COSMO-SkyMed Satellite
  • Russia Launches Four Satellites Into Orbit For Globalstar
  • Proton-M Carrier With US Telecom Satellite To Lift Off In June
  • Microgravity Enterprises Launches Commercial Payload From New Mexico Spaceport

  • Kalam Calls For Development Of Satellite Systems For Entire Humanity
  • Boeing Launches Italian Earth Observation Satellite
  • Envisat Captures First Image Of Sargassum From Space
  • US Experts Predict Nine Atlantic Hurricanes This Season

  • Full Set Of Jupiter Close-Approach Data Reaches Home
  • A Goofball Called Pluto
  • First Observation Of A Uranian Mutual Event
  • Continuing Our Jovian Journey

  • NRAO Teams With NASA Gamma-Ray Satellite
  • University Of Michigan Astronomers Capture The First Image Of Surface Features On A Sun-Like Star
  • Astronomers Map Action In The Cosmic Suburbs
  • FUSE Satellite Catches Collision Of Titans

  • A Climate Monitoring Station On The Moon
  • No Plans To Join NASA Lunar Program Says Russian Space Agency
  • Oresme Crater Show Many Signs Of The Early Lunar Heavy Bombardment
  • First China Mission To Moon To Launch By Year End

  • EU Agrees Galileo Needs Public Bailout
  • EU To Back Galileo Bailout And But Faces Tough Talks On New Funds
  • Latest AeroAstro Asset Tracking Satellite Downlink Decoder Ready For Deployment
  • Russian Satellite Navigation Devices On Sale This Year

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement