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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Martin Damus <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 26 Jul 2001 15:18:00 -0400
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>Is this true of all "new" GM crops, or just newly developed crops.
>In other words, will GM crops developed years ago that are offered
>for sale next year no longer have this antibiotic resistant marker
>gene?  Is this true of just certain companies or all? The US or
>worldwide?

Unfortunately all I can say is "I don't know".    New crops, no matter where manufactured, are almost certainly not marked with antibiotic genes, and since the US and Canada produce probably most of the world's GM crops that would mean that worldwide crops no longer have antibiotic genes.  Whether the old crops are still around I cannot say.  I would have to guess that somewhere, someone has kept back some seed for reuse??

>If these genes have indeed transfered to weeds such as rape, and with
>the cases in Canada where GM markers have been found in crops grown
>by farmers that never intended to grow GMO's (due to drift from other
>farms), what is projected time period until these genes are spread
>nationwide?

That would all depend on the mobility of the seeds and pollen, and whether or not the new genes confer some form of advantage to the plant.  It is possible that the manufacture of the products of these new genes confers no advantage to the plant when it is not being liberally doused with, say, roundup, and that in direct competition with non-GM plants the added cost of making the proteins that protect againts roundup will make it less competitive than non-GM plants.  In that case it will slowly be extirpated if not under control in a farm field.  Of course that is not true if the gene transferred makes the BT toxin, which would render it some immunity to insect predation and put it at an extreme competitive advantage.  Many weeds are in the Brassicaceae family, as is Canola.  Plants hybridize quite readily; the species barrier in plants is not as distinct as in animals, so there is, in my mind at least the non-insignificant possibility that gm pollen inseminates a non-gm weed ovum.  I guess we have little choice now but to wait and see.

Martin

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