GM potato trials given go-ahead (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

A plan to grow genetically modified potatoes on two trial sites in England has been approved by the government.

Defra granted permission for BASF Plant Science to grow the vegetables at field sites in Cambridgeshire and Derbyshire.

The crops have been modified to include a gene from a wild species of potato in a bid to make them resistant to blight, a disease costing growers £70m a year.

But the Soil Association said it was "a stupid decision" and warned other crops risked contamination by GM.

BASF aims to develop potatoes resistant to Phytophthora infestans, a fungal organism that produces late blight.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6197768.stm

[amandabeech]

1. It's unclear if the genes inserted into the common potato are

only those of a particular wild potato variety or if non-potato genes are inserted also.

If the GM technique only uses existing potato genes, what is the difference between GM and well-known hybridization techniques?

I'm curious.

[NNadir]

2. You'll get in trouble for asking that question.

It's a perfectly good question by the way, since both strategies favor some genes over others. Genes have a nasty way of keeping themselves around, even genes that do things we don't like. These genes are worse than genes that occur naturally that do things we don't like because these genes do something we do like. Why? I don't know, but it seems to be the case.

I have read that much of the human genome, in fact much of the genomes of all species, was actually inserted by viruses.

When Greenpeace finds out about this, I'm sure they'll be a movement afoot to ban humans and other "infected" species.

The problem here, of course, is that its not random. Some people think that only natural events that occur without human intervention, are acceptable, even if the natural events include things like the evolution of the plague bacillus, or the tuberculosis organism. In this notion there is a God who is always smarter than humans. Personally, I'm an atheist, but I think I'm in the minority.

Actual physical effects of gene insertions are no different than the disaster that ensued when cells incorporated things like chloroplasts.

[amandabeech]

3. I seem to be in trouble somewhere most of the time, so

I thought I'd take a chance with this question, since I seem to have a 50/50 chance of getting in trouble with each incident. What do I have to lose?

If I understand your answer correctly, the GM gene insertion technique may have unintended consequences and may favor some genes over others.

I don't reject hybridization myself, but often that process highlights bad genes as well as useful genes, like both susceptibility to certain diseases, which is bad, and drought resistance, which is probably good and getting better.

I seem to recall reading that the GM insertion technique using only genes from different varieties of the same plant can speed up the process of developing and multiplying slow growing plants like trees that have certain characteristics, like disease resistance. Apparently, common hybridization takes a long time with the slow growers since it may take years to grow a tree to the point where the visual or other characteristics are clearly expressed.

My recollection is that the process is being used particularly with tree species threatened with invasive insects and diseases found on different continents like elm, chestnut, hickory and ash. The goal is to isolate the resistant genes, sometimes from an overseas variety, while preserving the other characteristics of the native varieties.

[Odin2005]

4. Yep, lateral gene transfer is quite common in nature.

I don't see what is so wrong with doing it artificially. Most of the anti-GMO rhetoric seems to be based on the luddite notion of "messing with nature" somehow being a bad thing and a somehow "arrogant" thing, which is BS, humans have been "messing with natue" since the birth of our species.