Randy:  There is no inherent difference between a crop bred for virus or fungus resistance, or lower phytotoxin levels, or higher vitamin content by precision genetic engineering than one bred by hit-or-miss mutation and/or hybridization.


--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


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See my earlier post on so-called "precision breeding".  It is hit-or-miss splicing into the genome, instead of hit-or-miss natural mutation, and it is much more dramatic at the genomic level.  That has consequences, some of which we are only beginning to recognize.  This short-cut--"precision breeding"--is like driving across an old mine field in order to save yourself a few miles driving around it.


Christina

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