Geneticists create 'next generation' of GM crops
Date: 31.5.2007
Researchers have created what could be the next generation of transgenic crops by inserting a gene for herbicide resistance from a bacterium into plants. The new crops could help to combat the spread of resistance to other commonly used herbicides.
The approach is not a new one — many farmers already grow crops that have been engineered to resist the herbicide glyphosate. But the new plants are resistant to a compound called dicamba, and could offer farmers an alternative in areas where glyphosate-resistant weeds have become a problem.
Dicamba, which kills broadleaf weeds but spares grasses, has been used for decades to protect fields planted with corn, a member of the grass family. The researchers have now created transgenic soya beans, tomatoes and other broad-leaved crops that are resistant to this herbicide — a development that will expand the range of dicamba's uses.
Dicamba lasts only a few months in soil, and rarely contaminates water contamination is rare. The chemical itself is stable, but it is quickly devoured by hungry hordes of microbes living in the soil....
Whole on "Nature":[ http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070521/full/070521-10.html]
Related articles
Antibiotic resistance countered - US scientists believe they may have found a way to stop the growing problem of bacteria becoming resistant to current drug treatments (11.7.2007)
Modified crops help reduce greenhouse gases - In 2005, the impact in reduced carbon dioxide emissions was the equivalent of removing nearly 4 million average family cars from the road, said the study by Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot of PG Economics Ltd (11.3.2007)
Transgenic crops expressing Bacillus thuringiensis toxins and biological control - The area devoted to growing transgenic plants expressing insecticidal Cry proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is increasing worldwide (8.2.2006)
