GM Crops Lead to Herbicide-Resistant Superweed in UK

August 3, 2005

No comment (cause I'll have too much comment if I do) ;-p

*Smile*

Chris (list mom)

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GM Crops Lead to Herbicide-Resistant " Superweed " in UK

August 2, 2005

by Roddy Scheer

British agricultural scientists have found that a genetically modified

(GM) variant of rapeseed has cross-fertilized with local wild charlock

plants, creating a herbicide-resistant " superweed " in the process. The

transformation of a plain charlock into a superweed is something

scientists had thought to be " virtually impossible. " The resulting

charlock plants, which showed no ill-effects after treatment with a

normally lethal herbicide, were discovered among many other unaffected

plants in a field that had been used to grow GM rapeseed as part of the

British government's three-year trials of GM crops.

While British officials were quick to downplay to discovery as

insignificant in the larger view of millions of unaffected plants, other

experts aren't so sure. Ecological geneticist Brian Johnson, a member of

the UK's scientific group assessing the farm trials, told reporters,

" You only need one event in several million. As soon as it has taken

place the new plant has a huge selective advantage. That plant will

multiply rapidly. "

What especially worries environmentalists is that because millions of

charlock seeds can remain in the soil for 20-30 years before

germination, it would be nearly impossible to remove any of the

genetically modified strains. Potential problems such as these are what

led many other European Union representatives, especially the French and

Greek delegations, to seek an outright ban on GM rapeseed.

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