GM tree in chile..is this sorta like the trees from brazil? ok, that was boys from brazil..so wot

[Guest guest]

a year old..but..i just got it

and, further down, they want to produce trees with less lingin, isn't lingin

important to like, well, hold the tree together? won't it just let trees fall

over, not be able to take up water efficeintly, be succeptable to insect

attack???

i heard something about someone testing lingin reduced aspens in the US also

wouldn't that be grand if it got lose in the wild...

 

Copyright 2002

Freedom Magazines International, Inc.

Latin Trade

May, 2002

 

LENGTH: 1247 words

 

HEADLINE: Here Come the Super Trees

 

BYLINE: Casey Woods * Santiago, Chile

 

BODY:

As legislators in Brazil engage in screaming matches over the steady

march

of genetically modified corn into their fields from nearby Argentina, a

Chilean joint venture is fast on its way to producingand exporting the

world's first genetically modified tree.

 

 

The idea follows what biotech firms already have done around the world

with

corn, potatoes and soybeans. Using Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a

naturally occurring soil bacterium that kills pests if inserted into

growing

plants, researchers at Genfor in Chile's rainy southern forests say they

are

near to producing a commercially viable Bt tree.

 

 

Genfor believes the tree will withstand the European shoot-tip moth, a

pest

endemic to Chilean forests. The moth burrows into the seedlings of

Radiata

pine, a tree type that makes up 80% of the country's forest plantations.

The

moth's larvae cause the main stem of the sapling to break, leaving timber

companies with a stunted bush instead of a healthy tree. The shoot-tip

moth

ruins about 30% of the harvest when it goes untreated, and 10% even with

treatment, according to Chile's National Forestry Corp. Chile's foresters

currently spend US$3 million annually to control the moths through the

release of wasps that prey on the larvae. Genfor says it has successfully

implanted seedlings with the Bt protein, which kills moth larvae before

they

can do damage. The company predicts that its insect-resistant pine will

be

ready for the market in 2008.

 

 

" My hunch is that the Chileans will be the first to market a transgenic

tree, " says David Duncan, former head of global forestry at Monsanto.

" They

have the tightest focus of anyone and, just as important, they have a

government relationship and infrastructure that will be most conducive to

supporting a commercial deployment of such a tree. "

 

 

The moth was the impetus that led to Genfor's creation. In 1997,

Biogenetics, a joint venture of U.S. biotechnology company Interlink and

Chilean technology think tank Fundacion Chile, began looking for ways to

address the problem. Canadian biotech company Cellfor entered the picture

when Biogenetics approached it about acquiring an elite cloning

technology

called somatic embriogenesis.

 

 

Instead of a purchase, a new joint venture was formed: Genfor, Latin

America's first and so far only biotechnology company dedicated solely to

forestry.

 

 

Fast forward. During the cloning process, Genfor harvests immature seeds

then generates tissue cultures from them, creating the source of an

infinite

number of future plants. The tissue cultures are then frozen, allowing

researchers to test the material and return for the most valuable

specimens,

an important factor in tree research, where testing times are long

because

of slow growth rates.

 

 

" Trees begin producing mature seeds only after seven or eight years, and

even then they produce a limited amount, " says Mike Moynihan, Genfor's

research vice president. " With this technology, I can produce millions of

plants from a single seed and without the wait. " Moynihan figures his

40-year research cycle has sped up to 10 years, thanks to cloning. He

also

projects a savings of $200 per hectareabout $66 million a year to Chile's

forestry businessbased on boosted productivity and improved seedling

quality.

 

 

Beyond the possibility of genetic modification that this process

provides,

somatic embriogenesis speeds up non-transgenic improvements methods, such

as

selection and later multiplication of the finest plants. The cloning

technology, paired with the superior genetic material, is Genfor's

insurance

policy against the long years required to develop a transgenic tree.

 

 

" Commercial deployment of any of our transgenic plants is at least six

years

away, so as a company we need to develop a money-making product in the

meanwhile, " says Genfor's head of operations, Juan Carlos Carmona. " That

product is elite clones produced by somatic embriogenesis. "

 

 

In its first step towards that strategy, Genfor has imported the finest

genetically improved trees from New Zealand, Chile's main competitor in

the

production of Radiata pine. Genfor has also established research

agreements

with Chilean forestry industry giants Arauco and Mininco, the companies

that

provide Genfor with their top specimens. Genfor supplies the technology

to

improve them and earns the right to market the results of the research.

 

 

Genfor intends to begin marketing the clones in 2005, but are Chilean

foresters ready to pay more for super seedlings? Major forestry

companies,

which are better informed consumers, will buy in, says Victor Sierra,

head

of tree improvement and biotechnology for Mininco. Small property owners,

those planting 200 hectares a year, won't pay a premium, Sierra says,

because they " don't yet have an understanding that the new product will

bring a bigger return. "

 

 

Pulp fiction? Even more significant than Genfor's insect resistance

project

are its joint efforts with Cellfor to raise the level of cellulose and

modify lignin in Radiata and Loblolly pine, key traits to Chile's

enormous

cellulose pulp production. Lignin is an element that must be removed to

make

paper; its removal is the most expensive and environmentally damaging

stage

of pulp production because of the massive amounts of chemicals used. U.S.

pulp producers alone spend $24 billion annually on that process.

 

 

The joint research in Cellfor's Canadian lab achieved a 20% cellulose

increase in poplar and is now transferring that experience to the pine

species. By 2003, concrete results are expected. Because Loblolly is

planted

extensively in Argentina and Brazil [as well as the southern United

States],

the project will be Genfor's entry into its larger target market of South

America.

 

 

For now, though, simply conquering the shoot-tip moth in Chile " would be

a

great contribution, " says Mininco's Sierra. " The level of technology in

the

Chilean industry is low, and we aren't competitive from the tech point of

view with any of the countries that compete in the same market. Genfor is

already changing that. "

 

 

Latin America's Fitful History with Transgenic Trees

 

1995 Monsanto came to the forestry biotech party and then left early.

In

1995, it produced a herbicide-resistant eucalyptus in Brazil. " We

estimated

that the modification would cut weed-control costs in half and would

increase final yield by 10%, " says David Duncan, the company's former

head

of global forestry. Monsanto ended its forestry program in 1999 after

reaching the field trial stage, deciding instead to focus its efforts on

food crops.

 

 

1998 In 1998, Shell Oil developed a herbicide-resistant eucalyptus in

Uruguay. Per a government agreement, the plants were burned after one

year.

Shell then dropped its biotech program for economic reasons, although

public

opinion was a factor. " It was a stage when there was an extremely bad

reaction to the technology, and I think many companies were very wary at

that point, " says Stuart Christie, Shell's forestry technology manager

for

South America.

 

 

NOW

Brazil's Aracruz wants to alter eucalyptus to increase pulp. Commercial

cultivation of genetically modified plants is illegal in Brazil, although

Aracruz's tree improvement manager, Fernando Bertolucci, is optimistic.

" We

believe that time is on our side in this case. We're not talking about

next

year, we're talking about six to eight years down the road, " he says. " We

expect that by then people will be more open to this new technology. "