Tag Archives: breeding

GMO Vocabulary

What is the difference between GMO and Organic?

Organic describes a process and GMO describes a product.

Organic describes carbon based compounds. It has become synonymous with USDA Organic which is a controlled food-growing process.  The USDA defines Organic as: “Organic food is produced without: antibiotics; growth hormones; most conventional pesticides; petroleum- based fertilizers or sewage sludge-based fertilizers; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. USDA certification is required before a product can be labeled “organic”. Companies, including restaurants, that handle or process organic food must be certified also.”

To read the electronic code of federal regulation in its entirety, its scintillating, use this link:

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title07/7cfr205_main_02.tpl

GMO describes a product that a change was made to, such as genetic modification.  The USDA describes genetically modified foods as “Foods produced from genetically modified organisms. These species have undergone directed modification of their gene complement using such techniques as altering the DNA, substituting genetic material by means of a virus, transplanting whole nuclei, transplanting cell hybrids, etc.”

The WHO defines genetically modified organisms as “foods derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism.”

http://www.who.int/topics/food_genetically_modified/en/

Organic describes a process and GMO describes a product. Excluding an arbitrary clause that says you can’t use GMO seed in USDA Organic production, there is really no reason why the two couldn’t work synergistically.

What is biotechnology?

The definition of biotechnology changes depending on who you ask.

The USDA says “The use of living organisms, cells or cell constituents for the purpose of developing products, improve animals or plants, or improve biological processes” compared to their definition for agricultural biotechnology which is “The use of living organisms, cells or cell constituents for the purpose of developing agricultural products or improving livestock or crop plants.”

http://agclass.nal.usda.gov/glossary.shtml

The WHO defines biotechnology as, “Biotechnology describes biological processes that have been engineered.”

http://www.who.int/biologicals/areas/vaccines/biotechnology/en/

Even OECD has a definition for biotechnology: “The application of science and technology to living organisms, as well as parts, products and models thereof, to alter living or non-living materials for the production of knowledge, goods and services.”

http://www.oecd.org/sti/biotech/statisticaldefinitionofbiotechnology.htm

If you asked me, I would say that biotechnology is the use of biological processes and systems to aid in technology.  So, you pick whichever one you like best.

What is the difference between conventional breeding and transgenics (GMOs)?

Time.

It is difficult to find an adequate source to describe the differences between classical breeding and transgenics aside from multiple college classes, but this PBS video clip does a pretty good job:

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.gen.breeding/classical-vs-transgenic-breeding/

Let’s take tomatoes as an example. Classical breeding works by picking the ‘best’ tomato. ‘best’ can mean biggest, reddest, most tomatoes, anything. Every time you pick that best tomato and you plant it again you are selecting for certain traits, and against others. The whole idea of breeding is you accumulate as much variety in a plant species (that will reproduce because if they don’t reproduce you’ve got nothing) and you mix it all up trying to find the best combinations. Breeders are very good at what they do and there are many methods such as pedigree breeding, backcross breeding, etc. to accelerate the process but ultimately they rely on collecting seeds, planting them, and seeing what they get. They take to good and leave the bad. But its not so simple. Linkage drag is when undesirable traits are passed from parent to offspring along with desirable traits making them difficult to separate. For instance a desirable trait might be a big, red, juicy tomato and an undesirable trait might be a susceptibility to disease. In spite of recent techniques, humans have been selecting for and against traits since we started farming.

In a very simplified sense, transgenics work like copy + paste. Once a desirable gene (that codes for a desirable trait) is identified – and that is a feat in and of itself – scientists can copy that gene and paste it into another plant using specialized techniques. This makes it “faster” than classical breeding because there is no time to wait between generations, and there is no linkage drag. Transgenics accelerate what the end product of classical breeding would be.

Things get tricky – not bad, but tricky – when breeders start using biotechnology to accelerate breeding. Imagine you can tag a gene with a post-it note and follow it throughout the plant’s life cycle and see if it gets passed on or not. This same type of tagging can be used in classical breeding and transgenics to see if the desirable trait was added into the new plant. Technically this is a form of biotechnology. The tricky part arises where at what point does classical breeding stop being transgenic breeding and visa versa?

To further complicate things genes can be copy and pasted from one plant to another within the same species. Even with classical breeding this could be done. So where does the line get drawn? Should there even be a line drawn?

What is ‘green gene’?

GMOs and Organics don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The green gene movement can be described as the integration of GMOs and Organic practices and ideals to produce a better, safer, more environmentally friendly agricultural production system. Aside from the USDA stipulation that GMOs can’t be used in organic production there is no scientific reason why they can’t either.

For instance, if you grow herbicide resistant corn but you don’t apply any herbicide, does it matter? A better example is potentially using pest or disease resistant crops in conjunction with other Organic practices.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/04/09/green-gene-movement-can-blend-genetic-engineering-and-organic-practices/#.U2CHqpNdWSo

Late Blight Resistant Potatoes

Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is one of the most devastating diseases of potatoes. The disease causes the leaves of the potato to wither and rot, and it can cause the tubers to rot as well. This is the same disease that was responsible for destroying the potato crop during the Irish Famine in the 1800s. Thus, resistance to this blight will be of major help to potato growers, especially in moister climates, such as those in the British Isles and the northeastern United States. In tomatoes, late blight resistance is being developed through traditional breeding programs. A high yielding tomato variety is crossed a late blight resistant wild species, then each descendent generation is crossed with the original variety, while still being selected for blight resistance. The end result is a variety with all the traits of the original variety and the resistance of the wild species. This is known as backcross breeding.  However, breeding resistance through this traditional methods has been difficult to achieve in potatoes, as they do not outcross well to the wild, resistant species. Thus, a gene from the wild species for late blight resistance was taken and inserted into the genome of the domestic potato, resulting in a plant similar to the product of backcross breeding. This potato variety was developed by the same institute that developed the anthocyanin containing tomatoes, the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.

Devastation from Late Blight

Devastation from Late Blight

Info. from the breeder

http://news.jic.ac.uk/2014/02/gm-spuds-beat-blight/

The alternative opinion

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2014/15313-gm-potato-research-a-waste-of-money

And a news article on the development of the potato

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26189722