Julie Deardorff’s article was most interesting. Deardorff states that, “If Roundup Ready grass did get into a farmer’s crop, a range of techniques could be used to eliminate the grass . . . ” This sounds reassuring, until you realize that several billion of the genetically engineered grass plants will be generating trillions of pollen particles.
Who will pay for the “range of techniques” that will be necessary to control the Roundup Ready grass?
This is America, so the manufacturer (Scotts Co. in this case) will be sued for damages. To act responsibly and to minimize liability, all of the genetically modified plants should be modified so that they can’t spread, so their special genes cannot escape into the general environment. To do this will require much more genetic manipulation, planning and testing, including:
– Scotts must change the Roundup Ready bentgrass to generate pollen and seeds only under laboratory conditions. These conditions would be ones that do not occur in nature.
– The pollen should be incompatible with any other grass or plant relative.
– The grass plants must require two or three modifications to their environment to simply stay alive. These conditions must be ones that never occur naturally. As an example, a high concentration of specific vitamins or proteins would need to be sprayed on the soil or leaves once a week.
– The plants should be made to be easily susceptible to insect or bacterial damage from several common pests. A multitude of barriers to the plants’ reproduction is crucial. Only one pollen grain needs to escape to fertilize a neighboring wild plant, and a gene that is expensive to control, a gene that spreads like the wind, a gene with a wealthy owner listed in the U.S. Patent office, will be out in the world causing damage.
