North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[John Barbowski <jbarbowski@gmail.com>]

Move over Monsanto, here comes BASF!

 

Monsanto and its GM herbicide tolerant wheat got international bad press and fundamentally was driven out of Canada in 2004. There were fears of "human health hazards, increase weed resistance and corporate control over crops".

 

Germany's BASF, through mutagenesis has developed CDC Imagine, a herbicide tolerant wheat that is making large inroads into Canada's prairie provinces. "It keeps growing when sprayed with herbicides that normally make wheat shrivel up and die."

 

Mutagenesis entails "blasting cells or seed with radiation, or bathing them in chemicals to cause mutations in a plants existing genes".

 

BASF bathed seeds in a chemical that induced genetic changes. They then grew the seed and sprayed the plants with a herbicide (dazolinone based, also produced by BASF). The surviving plants have the desired mutation.

 

"Even more remarkable, this high-tech wheat has avoided the wrath of farmers, environmentalists, and consumers who drove Monsanto's wheat out of Canada".

 

This is from an article in The National Post by Margaret Munro, Dec 29, 2005.

 

Somehow, I fail appreciated the difference!

 

jb