Hi All,

Christina and I recently had a brief discussion on precision breeding (AKA
genetic engineering) of plant cultivars.  I'm currently in New Zealand,
where one of the hot topics is Myrtle Rust, which threatens many important
bee forage plants (manuka, eucalyptus, etc) here, in Australia, and South
America.

One of the solutions is the selection of resistant cultivars, which could
take many years to select, improve, and develop.  A shortcut would be
precision breeding--splicing in a gene from another plant to confer
resistance.  But then those trees and shrubs would be producing GMO honey,
according to some interpretations.

Another example is the American Chestnut, which used to cover Eastern
forests, providing a huge amount of nutritious nuts to wildlife, and pollen
and nectar to pollinators.  A human-introduced fungus destroyed the
Chestnut trees, which were a keystone species in forests from Maine to ,
thus changing the entire ecology of formerly Chestnut-dominated ecosystems.

Due to it taking 5 years for the chestnut to produce its first seeds,
conventional breeding for resistant cultivars (dependent upon chance
mutations) could take a very long time.  But by using precision breeding, a
cultivar developed by a non profit is already waiting to regulatory
approval (article here
<http://theconversation.com/new-genetically-engineered-american-chestnut-will-help-restore-the-decimated-iconic-tree-52191>).
In short, a gene from bread wheat was spliced into the tree's genome.  The
wheat gene produces an enzyme called oxalate oxidase (OxO), which
detoxifies the oxalate that the fungus uses to form deadly cankers that
kill the tree.

Since most Americans eat wheat every day, they wouldn't be exposed to any
new gene, yet there are alarmists that are fighting even this exemplary
example of the benefits of precision breeding.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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