The NEW World Dictators..... Hitlers Reborn

[gwynplaine]

I can think of one benefit, to your farm, and mine, lakenheath. Ever lost grade due to sprouted wheat?

Wheat is pretty highly self-pollenated, as I understand it. Worst case scenario, don't buy seed with the Terminator gene, and exclude the outside rounds from your saved seed (to lower the risk of cross-pollenation). And, thats assuming that this will even GET registered. Look at the outcry over RR wheat.

I personally support both biotech and PBR on wheat (functional traits, though, like Fusarium resistance rather than herbicide tolerance), however I'm glad we don't (and hopefully, won't) have RR wheat, for the simple reason that I don't enjoy the idea of adding a $12 treatment to my RR canola, to get rid of RR wheat.

[wd9]

Question for the scientific genius posters on this discussion.

How can pollen spread from a plant with Genetic Use Restriction Technology to another plant and have that new plant grow if the technology prevents the offspring seed from growing?

[lakenheath]

I am not a scientific genius, but the answer is very simple.

Let's look at a very over-simplified example.

I have a field with 1000 plants of non-gm wheat.

Neighbour plants next to me 1000 plants of RR Terminator Wheat.

West wind blows pollen and cross pollinates with 250 of my plants.

I go and clean seed from my harvested 1000 wheat plants and find out the my germination is 75% because 25% of the plants were cross pollinated with the Terminator gene.

Bye Bye bin run seed. Unless you like seeding with low germination wheat seed.

Tell me that disenabling an organism from reproducing is a good thing. I wouldn't want my bread made from that.

[lakenheath]

wd9

Or maybe you have a magic seed cleaner that removes Terminator seeds from the grain sample.

[wd9]

lakenheath, pollen flow and seed development is always a challenge regardless of the technology or characteristics in the variety you wish to multiply. This has been an issue forever.

Following the guidelines of barriers and maintaining pollen spread distances for retaining seed the cross is extremely low - not zero of course, but not 25% as you illustrated.

The advantage is those few seeds which contain the traits to prevent germination do not add to your production crop the next year and eliminates the seeds from appearing in your end product which the customer may not want. The challenges of organic production, biosafety protocol, adventitious presence, coexistence and of course non-tariff trade barriers are very real today as you all well know.

Absolutely, as a farmer I fear the day all the seed I put in the ground will have to be purchased. That is the issue that seems to drive whether individual technologies should be accepted or rejected and although it shouldn't be that way, it is and will be stronger as more tech comes along.

The challenge will be that if the innovation is scientifically shown by CFIA and Health Canada to be safe for feed, food, and the environment, should the individual farmer have the opportunity to choose that product if it makes finacial sense on their own farm. Or should a handful of fear mongerers make that decision for everyone's farms?

Again, I don't want to buy all my seed as certified, but if I did want to and it made financial sense for my farm, should I have that opportunity?

[wd9]

Well, should I?

[lakenheath]

Absolutely not. Just because you can obtain financial gain is not reason enough be able to use something. If slavery was legal, I could sure get some cheap labour for my farm. Really improve the bottom line. So why shouldn't I be able to run slaves on my farm if it would improve my bottom line? Why?

Because it is not right. It effects others. Don't be so selfish and nearsighted. Look at the long-term implications. Way too often in agriculture have we not had foresight into the future, for short term gain.

[wd9]

Uhhhh, because slavery is illegal, and novel trait registration by Health Canada and CFIA are covered under Acts.

I'm not sure what you are referring too in regards to illegal measures, but suppose there was the ability to eliminate spraying Lorsban - killing everything in my canola field, beneficial insects, birds, bees... and the surrounding area just to control Bertha army worms. If there was a switchable gene to control them instead, would it be of value and benefit?

How about not having to spray for sclerotina? How about wheat, oats barley, canola being able to fix their own nitrogen? How about being able to straight cut canola - pod shattering resistance? How about drought and salene tolerance? How about fusarium resistant wheat? How about feed wheat with the bacteria to enable ethanol production right from the seed like switch grass? How about pharmaceuticals, biodiesel specific oilseeds. Creating products which help lower cholesterol?

Are you saying I can't choose to grow these because you don't understand them?

[lakenheath]

WD9,

The debat was on the topic of "Terminator Gene".

You - Pro.....Me - Con

You said, "Shouldn't I be able to use something on my farm that benefits my farm"

I used an analogy (although a far out one), and the point I was trying to prove was that just because something would benefit a farm does not mean we have the God given right to use it.

Remember.....Terminator gene is the debate. Not insect tolerant traits being bread into plants or genetically modifying the plants DNA.

[northfarmer]

genetic advancements in our crops, including insect and disease resistance, are intertwined in the the terminator, or more appropriately GURT debate.....for private interest, not government, to invest in plant biotech they will need a means to protect their intellectual property...and to get regulatory approvals...the debate often gets polariized by fear mongerers and conspiracy threorists....from what I have read recently the focus of the research now is is into development of traits that might possibly cease to exist after the first generation of planting....ie. imagine if the F2 liberty canola you planted did not have liberty resistance...it would grow but you could not steal the trait from the legal owner...the fact of the matter from a macroecomic perspective is that such technolgy may level the playing field with countries such as Brazil and Argentina where their is little or no defence of intellectual property rights in the courts...but I suppose it will be their governments that pay for development of biotech traits for defence against asian rust??? or will they simply find a way to steal the technolgy from plant breeders in the US?....either way imagine what such biotech developments in soybeans might do to further undermine the position of canola in the global oil seed market...this is a very complex debate, and from that perspective I think it is not just a debate of pro and con on the terminator gene, that frankly is the oversimplification and polarization of the real debate on this matter...in MHO