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market-farming - Re: Glow in the dark spuds

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  • From: "Betsy" <ilima AT ev1.net>
  • To: "market farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Glow in the dark spuds
  • Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:00:21 -0600

I'm just curious - "injecting" plants with a material doesn't sound like genetic engineering. Does anyone know if the "injecting" is actually "inserting" of the gene?
 
Betsy
----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Batson
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: Glow in the dark spuds

At 12:02 AM -0500 12/19/00, Jeff <jeff AT emarketfarm.com> wrote:

>re: "Glow in the Dark Spuds called 'Agriculture of the Future'"
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>    I've been following this list-serve for quite sometime and have come
>to appreciate the "grassroots" comments posted here by farmers nationwide.
>    As an agricultural journalist and direct-marketing small farmer, I
>thought the following story (which just came across the AP wires) would
>be of interest to this group. The full story is posted below.

[snip]

>New Super-Spud Glows Green to Ask for Water
>
>LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have pioneered a genetically modified
>``super potato'' which glows when it needs water, the head of the
>project said on Monday.
>
>Researchers at Edinburgh University injected potato plants with a
>fluorescence gene borrowed from the luminous jellyfish aequorea
>victoria, which causes their leaves to glow green when dehydrated.
>
>``This is an agriculture of the future,'' Professor Anthony Trewavas
>told Reuters. ``We were trying to design a way of monitoring the
>resources within a field and decided it was the plant itself which has
>that information.''
>
>The potatoes are not intended to be eaten but would act as
>''sentinels,'' planted beside the commercial crop to alert a farmer that
>the rest of his field needed watering.

[snip]

Another article about these potatoes can be found at
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-52740,00.html
and makes no mention that these are intended to be "sentinel" plants.
Is Reuters right or not?

--

Bob Batson                            L 39 12 14 N 94 33 16 W
rcb AT kc.rr.com                         Kansas City
TCS - Mystic Fire Priest              USDA Zone 5

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Under the most controlled conditions, the experimental apparatus
will do exactly as it pleases.

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