[TheForge] OT: GM foods OT:

[peter fels]

Replying off list.


On May 26, 2011, at 4:48 PM, dann at wctatel.net wrote:

> I cannot understand why people fear GMO grains.
> 
> GMO foods are plant gene groups that were shifted from one kind of plant
> into another, using a plant virus as the vector. When the jump has been
> made, it is back to plain old cross breeding and hybrization to produce a
> plant that has commercially viable grain yields.
> 
> The nuts and bolts of GM foods is basically good old fashioned, old school
> plant genetics. Yes the modifications are now done in a lab, but the
> mechanics are all biological processes that happen in nature.
> 
> Scientists search out a living plant with the desired genes, expose that
> plant to a plant virus.  The plant virus does what all virus do when they
> reproduce.  They randomly cut into and insert themselves into the plants
> DNA, when they reproduce,they cut back out, but drag parts of the plant's
> DNA with the virus' DNA.  Then the scientist  expose that carrier virus to
> the desired plant species, in hopes that if they do it enough times,  the
> virus will move the right sequence of genes from the initial cultured
> plant into the new plant culture.  It can take thousands of cell cultures
> ... to finally get the right genes to jump.
> 
> Case in point.
> Monsanto had a herbicide : Roundup that when applied at the rate of one
> quart to an acre, on a young growing plant,  pretty much killed all
> plants. Not quite like a liquid frost, but the idea is there.
> 
> They wanted a soybean that would be immune to moderate rates of Roundup. 
> They used soybean cell cultures.. thousands and thousands of petri dishes
> that they applied diluted herbicides.. until they got some soybean cell
> cultures that survived.  Then they grew these round up resistant  cell
> cultures into  mature plants, and cross bred the round up resistance into
> better yielding varieties.
> 
> Roundup Ready Soybeans were not GMO:  they were developed using  a
> modified process of natural selection. But one of the first GMO sucess
> stories was when the Soybean genes from the Roundup resistent gene package
> was shifted from the soybean plant to other species of plants like Corn
> using plant virus.  Once they got roundup resistent gene package shifted
> to the corn, the next task was simply old fashioned cross breeding  to get
> the Round UP Ready Corn  yields to production yield standerds.
> 
> At least that is how I remember my Genetics professor explaining what was
> being attempted 40 years ago.
> 
> Dann
> 
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> TheForge mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:TheForge at mailman.qth.net
> 
> TheForge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.photoworks.com
> Login: blacksmithblacksmith at hotmail.com
> Password: anvil
> 
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html