1.Escape and hybridization of a genetically modified invasive plant
2.Illegal gene flow from transgenic creeping bentgrass: the saga continues
NOTE: Scotts, the US lawn and garden care company, teamed up with Monsanto to develop Roundup Ready bentgrass seed with a view to selling it to the lucrative golf-course market. The US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and most of Oregon's grass-seed growers all had major concerns about its development. But Scotts still got the green light to begin GM bentgrass trials in Oregon. A decade later the problems of GM contamination continue and appear to be growing more complex.
–-
–-
1.Escape and hybridization of a genetically modified invasive plant
Invasive Plant Guide Blog, October 5 2012
http://invasiveplantguide.com/blog/?p=164
Back in 2002 Scotts Company planted Roundup resistant Agrostis stolonifera (creeping bentgrass) in a trial field in Oregon. The genes moved in pollen carried by the wind to wild Agrostis stolonifera and A. gigantea plants up to 21 km away. Scotts failed to kill all the transgenic plants found outside the field boundaries and populations of transgenic plants were found in 2006. Now scientists have found a wild creeping bentgrass plant hybridized with pollen contribution from a grass in another genera, Polypogon monspeliensis, to create a transgenic hybrid grass. A decision about deregulating transgenic Agrostis stolonifera is still pending. Let's hope this new data gets taken into consideration!
–-
–-
2.Illegal gene flow from transgenic creeping bentgrass: the saga continues
ALLISON A SNOW
Molecular Ecology, Volume 21, Issue 19, pages 4663 4664, October 2012
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2012.05695.x
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2012.05695.x/abstract
ABSTRACT: Ecologists have paid close attention to environmental effects that fitness-enhancing transgenes might have following crop-to-wild gene flow (e.g. Snow et al. 2003). For some crops, gene flow also can lead to legal problems, especially when government agencies have not approved transgenic events for unrestricted environmental release. Creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera), a common turfgrass used in golf courses, is the focus of both areas of concern. In 2002, prior to expected deregulation (still pending), The Scotts Company planted creeping bentgrass with transgenic resistance to the herbicide glyphosate, also known as RoundUp®, on 162 ha in a designated control area in central Oregon (Fig. 1). Despite efforts to restrict gene flow, wind-dispersed pollen carried transgenes to florets of local A. stolonifera and A. gigantea as far as 14 km away, and to sentinel plants placed as far as 21 km away (Watrud et al. 2004). Then, in August 2003, a strong wind event moved transgenic seeds from windrows of cut bentgrass into nearby areas. The company’s efforts to kill all transgenic survivors in the area failed: feral glyphosate-resistant populations of A. stolonifera were found by Reichman et al. (2006), and 62% of 585 bentgrass plants had the telltale CP4 EPSPS transgene in 2006 (Zapiola et al. 2008; Fig. 2). Now, in this issue, the story gets even more interesting as Zapiola & Mallory-Smith (2012) describe a transgenic, intergeneric hybrid produced on a feral, transgenic creeping bentgrass plant that received pollen from Polypogon monspeliensis (rabbitfoot grass). Their finding raises a host of new questions about the prevalence and fitness of intergeneric hybrids, as well as how to evaluate the full extent of gene flow from transgenic crops.