Re: That *gene* thang again......
Richard Starkeson wrote:
>
> Some of this is inevitable. I don' t have much use for a blue carnation, but I
> wouldn't mind being able to
> grow peaches that tasted and smelled like mangoes (papayas?). Something that
> could only be
> accomplished by gene splicing (if it ever could). Afterall, there isn't a
> whole lot "natural" about some of the palnts we
> have been breeding for a couple thousand years.
>
> (How's that for controversey?)
>
Richard
I take up the challenge!
Until the start of GE all plant breeding _was_ natural, in that it never
went outside the bounds of natural possibility. Any of the crosses that
were carried out could conceivably have happened without any human
intervention. That they didn't, was often because the particular species
involved did not normally occur in the same territory, but if they were
introduced to one another by any circumstance (not always planned human
intervention) it was still perfectly possible for nature to arrange a
marriage.
GE on the other hand brings together genes from species which could in
no circumstance cross in nature and produce a viable offspring, usually
because their genetics simply do not fit together well enough at the
chromosome level. Indeed this technology does not only involve
plant/plant gene transfer, but also animal/plant ones where there could
be no possibility of any sort of match.
Your example of transferring the taste of one fruit to another is
certainly little different from what is already being done with this
technique.
There is no doubt we have the technology, though still at a very
primitive and tentative stage, but whether we should be using it now or
ever for anything but laboratory experiments is very doubtful. What the
major controversy is about is that we cannot guarantee cut and dried
results with a straight transfer of a single trait. For one thing, the
technique is still very crude and other unwanted genes may hitchike
along with the one that is selected, and for another transferring the
gene into a new "gene climate" can result in its reacting in some
entirely new and unexpected way. When applied to food crops this could
render them harmful is some way either causing allergies or even making
them poisonous. This seems to be already happening with GE soyabeans, as
there has been a great increase in allergies where they are being
regularly used (50% in Britain for instance)and goodness know what could
happen farther down the line.
The other problem is effects on the environment and this raises all
sorts of adverse possibilities such as development of superweeds and
poisoning of useful or desirable insect species (You may possibly have
heard of the poisoning of Monarch butterflies by insecticide-containing
pollen blowing from GE corn on to adjacent milkweeds).
Well there you have it. It might be possible to make your
mango-flavoured peach, but what cost to you and the environment nobody
yet knows. You would probably be much safer combining the two normal
fruits in a fruit salad!!
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata,
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
