1.AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS DEVELOP NON-GM DROUGHT TOLERANT CANOLA
2.GM APPROACH DOESN'T WORK WITH RICE VIRUS
GM WATCH COMMENT: As Australian farmers grapple with the current record-breaking lack of rainfall, Australia's Agriculture Minister, Peter McGauran, and a coterie of pro-GM lobbyists are trying to exploit the drought by demanding an end to the GM moratorium operated by Australia's state governments.
The Australian press reported this week, "The states have been told to lift their moratorium on genetically modified crops as Australia grapples with the harshest drought in a century... Mr McGauran said there was only a 5 to 10 per cent chance of rain breaking the drought, and GM technology could be a boon." (Lift ban on GM crops, states told, The Australian, October 4 2006) http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20521505-2702,00.html
The former head of the South Australian Farmers Federation, John Lush, recently went still further, claiming, "drought-resistant GM crops could save farmers millions of dollars."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7045
And "GMO Pundit", a.k.a. GM-zealot David Tribe, has been highlighting on his blog an article that makes it look like the US is laughing all the way to the bank, while Australia suffers, thanks to GM, "ONLY IN AMERICA: GM crops saving farm economy from drought."
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/only-in-america-gm-crops-saving-farm.html
The only problem with this onslaught is that it's based on deceit. The article Tribe highlights is a vacuous and misleading propaganda piece from the rightwing Heartland Institute, which fights climate-change science and regulations on smoking just as vigorously as it promotes GM.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7094
And McGuaran and Lush's claims of massive benefits denied to drought stricken Australian farmers are equally cynical. Although there's been talk for many years about the wonders of drought-resistant GM crops, Robert Horsch, Monsanto's vice president, has admitted that such crops are actually not so easy to develop, while Christopher Horner, another Monsanto spokesman, has admitted such crops are years away from commercial production. He also admits that when they do finally become available, it will be "in the United States... well before they become available in other countries."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6190
And these Monsanto time frames for GM crops able to thrive despite scant rainfall may themselves be no more than industry hype. According to Professor Tim Flowers of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex, commercially available drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant GM crops could be decades away, if they ever come at all.
"Evaluation of claims that biotechnology can produce salt-tolerant crops reveals that, after ten years of research using transgenic plants to alter salt tolerance, the value of this approach has yet to be established in the field. Biotechnologists have reasons for exaggerating their abilities to manipulate plants
"If 'biotechnology' is to contribute tolerant crops, these crops may still be decades from commercial availability. The generation of drought tolerant crops is likely to have a similar period of development."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6190
And the real joke is that while the pro-GM lobbyists pretend GM can already solve problems that conventional approaches can't tackle, conventional plant breeding is already starting to deliver the goods for Australian farmers.
Two months ago the Minister for Innovation in the Australian state of Victoria announced that a new species of non-GM drought tolerant canola had been developed and field-trialled "that could make up to 1.5 million hectares of drought prone farmland in Australia more productive and profitable." (item 1)
Note also that the traditional breeding of this new species of drought tolerant canola was accelerated by the deployment of molecular marker assisted selection - an intelligent deployment of biotechnology that does not involve GM, and so avoids all its uncertainties and market-damaging potential.
Please also note how in the second article below - on resistance to a damaging rice virus - the GM approach was found to be ineffective.
EXTRACT FROM ITEM 2: "The results show that the transgenic plants have only partial [virus] resistance, and for only a short time, and can even end up with a heightened susceptibility. In the particular case of the rice/RYMV interaction, the strategy of introducing a viral gene by transgenic techniques does not bring any advantages compared with the use of natural resistance." (item 2)
---
1. VICTORIAN SCIENTISTS DEVELOP DROUGHT TOLERANT CANOLA
FROM THE MINISTER FOR INNOVATION, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/newmedia.nsf/35504bc71d3adebcca256cfc0082c2b8/c405c362f8a2148aca2571c60001df36!OpenDocument
Victorian scientists have developed a new species of drought tolerant canola that could make up to 1.5 million hectares of drought prone farmland in Australia more productive and profitable, the Minister for Innovation, John Brumby, announced today.
Mr Brumby said Department of Primary Industry (DPI) scientists, together with collaborative international partners, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool have used enhanced traditional breeding and molecular marker assisted selection to refine the yield and quality of juncea canola.
Announcing the research as part of the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC) 2006 currently being held in Melbourne, Mr Brumby said the scientific breakthrough had come at an opportune time for Australian primary producers.
"The drought is hitting the Australian community very hard, but this development is another example of how Victoria's scientists are working with international scientists to provide biotechnology solutions to serious problems," Mr Brumby said.
Commercial arrangements are currently being finalised and seed plantings for the first two juncea canola cultivars bred for Australia are also underway, with a view to releasing commercial quality seed to farmers next year.
The Minister for Agriculture, Bob Cameron, said recent trials of Brassica juncea across Australia equalled and in some cases exceeded standard Brassica napus canola yields by up to 30 per cent.
"Juncea canola has more vigorous early growth, better drought and heat tolerance than conventional canola, and quality characteristics ideal for the current canola market," Mr Cameron said.
"In dry areas such as the Mallee, juncea canola shows much better early vigour than traditional canola, which means it gets up and competes better with weeds.
"It is of course still susceptible in extreme dry like we are experiencing this season, but the product's durability in drought prone conditions should enable it to survive in regions receiving as little as 275mm of rainfall annually.
"Juncea canola offers growers rotational benefits in their current cereal rotations by allowing them to control grass weeds and cereal diseases and pests.
"DPI is currently continuing to trial juncea canola at a series of dryland sites across the Mallee, including Beulah, Birchip, Hopetoun, Walpeup, Ultima and across Australia in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia."
---
2.Discovery of the first resistance gene to rice yellow mottle virus
Source : Institut de Recherche Pour le Developpement via Biology News, October 6 2006 http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2006/10/06/discovery_of_the_first_resistance_gene_to_rice_yellow_mottle_virus.html
Rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) was first identified in 1966 in Kenya. It has since been reported in most African countries where rice is grown. The disease is characterized by the appearance of mottling and then tissue death on the leaves. The fertility and development of seeds are affected, which causes considerable yield losses at harvest.
Transmission of RYMV occurs by way of insect vectors or by straightforward contact between plants. Prevention measures, like direct sowing or the burying of straw, have been implemented in order to limit the spread of the disease, but the real potential for reducing the impact of RYMV is to be found in the use of resistant varieties.
In certain rare traditional varieties of the Asian species of rice, Oryza sativa, and of the African variety, O. glaberrima, RYMV infection does not generally produce leaf symptoms, or have any impact on the harvest production. However, these varieties do not have the agronomic characteristics sought after for intensive irrigated cultivation or growing on low-lying land, where the disease provokes most damage. IRD geneticists have for several years been applying their research to the genetic bases of this resistance in order to facilitate its transfer to varieties that are agronomically useful yet susceptible to the virus with a view to optimizing their use.
Standard genetic studies first found evidence that resistance was controlled by a single recessive gene. Subsequent genetic mapping identified a fragment of chromosome 4 containing the resistance gene. Data from rice genome sequencing have been extremely useful for research on this fragment to find out if one gene rather than another could confer resistance to RYMV. Data from the literature indicates that gene eIF(iso)4G, involved in cellular RNA translation and named Rymv1, appeared to be the best candidate. Validation of the function of this resistance gene was performed by genetic transformation. For this, a line of resistant rice was modified by transgenically introducing the allele for susceptibility of this gene. The descendents of transformed plants that manifested restored susceptibility always showed the presence of the transgene .
Viruses are built with a small genome coding for a limited number of proteins (5 in the RYMVs). They therefore need their host's proteins in order to accomplish each stage of their infection cycle. One of the proteins that the RYMV requires appears to be the eIF(iso)4G translation initiation factor coded by the Rymv1 gene which is probably involved in viral protein translation, but also perhaps in other processes such as the virus's movement within the cell.
The research team discovered mutations of the gene they analysed in three different resistant varieties. These are distinct but are situated in the same domain of the gene in a patch on the surface favourable for interaction with the virus. In these varieties, the mutation does not appear to alter the protein's role in its primary biological functions, but can prevent its interaction with the virus which is then blocked in one of the stages of its infectious cycle.
In parallel, a team of IRD virologists showed that it was possible to carry out laboratory selection of RYMV strains that break the gene's resistance and that the process involved was determined by mutations in one of the viral proteins. The two approaches are now being combined in order to determine the molecular mechanisms of resistance or susceptibility on the basis of direct interactions between the rice protein and that of the virus. Understanding of these mechanisms will give clues as to the best ways of making long-term use of this resistance gene.
Another strategy developed by the IRD for combating this virus involves introducing part of the viral genes into the plant genome by transgenesis, as has been done in other plant/virus interactions, with the aim of inducing resistance to RYMV. The results show that the transgenic plants have only partial resistance, and for only a short time, and can even end up with a heightened susceptibility. In the particular case of the rice/RYMV interaction, the strategy of introducing a viral gene by transgenic techniques does not bring any advantages compared with the use of natural resistance.
This research can find applications in ways of improving rice production in countries hit by RYMV. Already, the IRD has transferred the gene Rymv1, by crossing, into some agronomically important varieties. The corresponding lineages have been given to various national (Ivory Coast, Senegal, Madagascar) and international research institutions such as the African Rice Centre (Warda, Benin) for them to use in variety selection programmes.