Author’s note: This would seem to be the week for vegetables I hated as a kid. Yesterday was onion, today tomato, if there’s a story about brinjal/eggplant in the next few days we’ll have hit all the big ones.
I was recently pointed to an early publication paper that went up on the Proceedings [...]
Posts Tagged ‘genetic engineering’
Scientists at India’s NIPGR Create a Longer-Lasting Tomato (Studying The Regulation of Fruit Ripening)
Biodiversity and Genetic Engineering Aren’t Mutually Exclusive!
The work of plant breeders and the naturalists who catalog so much of the genetic diversity passed down over 400 generations*, have done far more to feed people than genetic engineering thus far. The reason I spend so much time talking about genetic engineering (and to a lesser extent mutation breeding) isn’t because I think [...]
Edible Cottonseed
A professor at Texas A&M has found a way to use genetic engineering to make cotton seeds edible to humans and livestock. It’s a chance to get more benefit (an important new source of protein) from an existing resource (cotton plants). Unfortunately for all those who stand to benefit (especially the poor and malnurished in countries like India and China that lead the world in cotton production), while it’s possible to create edible cotton seeds using natural mutations, the only way to do it so the plants are heavily attacked by insects requires genetic engineering, so any benefits are a decade or more away.
Bt Rice in China
Reuters has a story up, based on anonymous sources, that China has just approved a government developed strain of bt rice*. Bt crops express a protein isolated from Bacillus thuringiensis a bacteria used by organic farmers to control insects. The introduction of bt crops (primarily corn and cotton) has lead to substantial reductions in the [...]
Not Genetically Engineered: Grapes
So apparently even grapes aren’t safe from accusations of genetic engineering. So it’s an excuse to do another crop profile.
About the herbicide application report that’s floating around
The Organic Center released a report about the effects of two genetically engineered traits, herbicide resistance and bt on pesticide usage in the US. I don’t know if their numbers are accurate or not, but assuming they are, I can try put those numbers in context.
Biotech Wheat
Nature Biotechnology has an article well worth checking out (if you have journal access anyway) about the story of biotech wheat. Read on for two key points from the article.
Greenpeace offers marker assisted breeding
Greenpeace offers plant scientists and plant breeders marker assisted breeding as an alternative to genetic engineering. Marker assisted breeding is an essential tool for crop improvement. Which is why they’ve been using it to help feed the world for years already!
Genetically Engineered Crops: Papaya
Profile of papayas which have been genetically engineered to resist the papaya ringspot virus. Notable particularly because development was done entirely by the public and non-profit sector. Also get the chance to touch on the differences between adoption in the United States and other countries, particularly Thailand.
bt: The Bacteria and the Protein
The bt in front of certain crop names doesn’t stand for biologically treated, nor biotoxic. A review of what bt crops really are, how they help control insect pests, and why they’re so much more specific than the insecticides they displace.