SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Durably resistant potatoes with wild potato genes offer 80% reduction in chemical control:
A research project into the development of potatoes with sustainable resistance against phytophthora via genetic modification with genes from wild potato varieties and good resistance management (DuRPh) has concluded with a scientific publication on the research results. The Wageningen UR scientists indicated that their approach was successful in developing potato plants which require 80% less chemical control.
The potato is the third food crop and offers a relatively high yield and valuable food per hectare. Global potato cultivation is, however, under threat from the pathogen Phytophthora infestans. Farmers who can afford to do so spray their crops against the pathogen with chemicals up to 15 times a year, which is both expensive and harmful to the environment. Farmers without the means for chemical control lose a large part of their yield in some years as a result of the disease.
...
The scientists mapped scores of resistance genes from wild potatoes of which nearly half were 'cloned' so that they could be transformed to existing potato varieties as single genes or in sets of two or three. After the scientists had determined that they could actually make susceptible potato varieties resistant, these potato plants were then multiplied to provide sufficient potatoes for research on trial fields.The resistant potatoes were studied in the field in various ways. In small 'monitoring plots' they also were used to study which types of phytophthora were present on the land. In larger demonstration fields, visitors from the sector and the general public could see the success of the attempt to make vulnerable potatoes resistant to phytophthora for four consecutive years.
Your fries are safe.
Durable Late Blight Resistance in Potato Through Dynamic Varieties Obtained by Cisgenesis: Scientific and Societal Advances in the DuRPh Project (DOI: 10.1007/s11540-015-9312-6)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday March 24 2016, @05:37AM
I believe this highlights a lot of our concern about patenting and ownership of genetics/seeds ( Monsanto ).
What happens when we get monocultured crops as our primary food supply and either the bugs or some hostile entity finds a way to infect the whole shebang with some plague?
Or if some private party develops a plague, while using existing law to protect their interest in a plague-resistant gene that they developed along with the plague?
( Of course, the fact they were the ones that developed the plague in the first place is a highly guarded secret... kinda like who shot JFK or did the World Trade Tower thing. )
I have my doubts our Congress would turn against their own kind and exact this from a company with the same indifference they exact a human life from a draftee - or took a bunch of people's homes for the benefit of a profit-taker as in Kelo vs. New London, as if dressing up in a fancy suit makes absurd misuse of authority "respectable".
N.B. I have had a sour attitude toward Monsanto ever since Grandpa and them got into a riff over who had the right to plant seeds they grew themselves on their own land. Just because a neighbor's pollen wafted onto Grandpa's crop made Monsanto's patented gene show up in Grandpa's crop - Monsanto seemed to have the right to force Grandpa to submit to them, but Grandpa could not sue Monsanto for altering his crop - which was for internal farm use anyway - as gramps wasn't a big enough grower to attract the big guys... he had cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and other assorted farm animals to feed. On the farm, corn is almost a universal animal food. Darned near everything but the cat will eat it. But the cat eats well with all the corn around. Mice. That were trying to eat the corn.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 24 2016, @04:12PM
That's the word that comes to mind every time talk of food staples comes up. Pretty much all of our vegetable foods are monocultures today. The earth is a germ warfare battleground. It only takes one slightly mutated something-or-other to infect ALL of our potatoes, or tomoatoes, or wheat, or whatever. If the huge monoculture of potatoes is wiped out in a single season, we'll still have other potatoes from which to start - but getting them into mass production will take time.
If instead of a single monotulture, we had a dozen widely varying cultivars in production, a blight might take out one or two varieties nationwide - but all the rest would produce.
What did Grandma say? "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"?
Of course, Monsanto really doesn't give a damn how many people might miss meals, or possibly even starve, if the crops fail. All they care about is getting their cut for all the produce harvested.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz