Genetically Modified Crops Pass Benefits to Weeds
August 21st, 2013Via: Nature:
A genetic-modification technique used widely to make crops herbicide resistant has been shown to confer advantages on a weedy form of rice, even in the absence of the herbicide. The finding suggests that the effects of such modification have the potential to extend beyond farms and into the wild.
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Making weedy rice more competitive could exacerbate the problems it causes for farmers around the world whose plots are invaded by the pest, Lu says.
“If the EPSP-synthase gene gets into the wild rice species, their genetic diversity, which is really important to conserve, could be threatened because the genotype with the transgene would outcompete the normal species,” says Brian Ford-Lloyd, a plant geneticist at the University of Birmingham, UK. “This is one of the most clear examples of extremely plausible damaging effects [of GM crops] on the environment.”
