Genetically modified potatoes 'resist late blight

[Pineberry]

Anybody wants to try this?
BBC News - Genetically modified potatoes 'resist late blight'

I think I know the answers to it.

[WendyC]

I heard it on the radio this morning. Won't be rushing to try!

[snakeshack]

Or you could just grow one of the sarpo varieties.I for one won't be growing or eating any GM crops if I can help it


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[rustylady]

I won't be growing any GM crops thank you. Neither will I be buying them from the supermarket.

[Rocketron]

Or you could just grow one of the sarpo varieties.I for one won't be growing or eating any GM crops if I can help it


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You'd better change your signature then.

[Snadger]

You'd better change your signature then.

Sarpo varieties are quite new aren't they?

Maybe the GM tatties have dead fish in them anyway!

[Bill HH]

It seems to me this GM stuff is gradualy creeping in by the back door, I thought it was banned in the common market. I dont trust it one bit. Farmers and horticulturalists have devoted their lives to improving strains by selection and these scientists / industrialists think they can do the same in a test tube. The time scale is too short to identify potential problems and when they emerge the product is already wide spread and unstopable.

They blackmail us by pleading that all they want to do is feed the starving millions whereas all they really want to do is enrich the executives on Monsanto and the like. if the world is that short of food why do we have grain mountains and pay farmers NOT to produce food? We could double our food production in this country by conventional methods given the right signals from government, so much wasted land. Allthough I love eating meat, it is horrificaly wasteful in terms of feed to produce it, just by encouraging people to eat more vegatbles could make all the difference.

GM is big business nothing less and we all know how devoted these money men are to ethics.

[Jeanied]

I am having more fun with the heritage varieties so no I don't think I need to go for gm potatoes. And blight isn't my main problem anyway.

[Bigmallly]

Call me naive but I would be interested to hear what growers who suffer from blight year in year out think.

[areia]

too be fair there are blight resistant and F1 varieties all ready I cannot see why a smallholder would need GM types...Its all aimed for supply and demand and big farmers

[Martin H]

The GM discussion is a really interesting one. Scientifically there's really very little difference between GM and the age-old techniques of breeding for specific characteristics by crossing with other species and using selection to achieve a stable strain.

Cabbages, Caulis, Sprouts, Broccoli and most of the other brassicas are descended from a scrappy little plant that lives by the seaside: selection, crosses and more selection over many generations of plant have created the huge range of different plants that we grow.

In flowers, tulipmania was fuelled by introduction of foreign DNA via viruses to produce all those different and highly sought-after colour breaks.

GM just speeds up these processes, splicing in the foreign DNA using lab technology, followed by selection and trials to find a stable strain.

I'm a science fiction fan but I do find it hard to imagine creation of a stable new vegetable strain that tastes good but is either going to kill everyone or destroy the world.

But I won't be buying anything that has a patent on its head, GM or otherwise, the same as I already avoid flowering plants that come with attached Plant Breeder's Rights. I probably won't be eating GM veg, either, at least not deliberately. I bet these crops are going to be expensive once they get permission to sell them, those scientists don't come cheap and neither do their lawyers.

[solway cropper]

Bill HH has it spot on. GM is about nothing more than big business trying to maximize its profits and wipe out all competition. Many years ago a good friend of mine was part of the graduate recruitment programme of a major international drug manufacturer. At the induction the new recruits were given a speech by the P.R. people about how the company was alleviating suffering throughout the world. Then followed one by a senior company accountant who told them to ignore what they'd just heard as the bottom line was that ***** was in business for no other reason than to make money. They did it by developing drugs but if they could make more selling bananas they'd sell bananas!

A lesson to remember.

[Martin H]

Solway, it's a shame that the attitude you quote is all too common.

But the very best businesses do not have making money as the number one objective, rather they treat the need to make profits as a constraint on their business. This sounds like a small thing but it makes all the difference in the world to the culture of the business.

[AllInContainers]

I'm another in the deeply sceptical camp when it comes to motivation and profits, althought there's so many other unknowns in the rest of the world we expose ourselves to that I wonder how much worse can it be. Alcohol promotes cancer - red wine reduces cancer ... make your mind up! Superfoods have a fantastic cleaning effect - superfoods are overhyped and don't make that big a difference. Eat purple foods. Eat a mix of colours. A big bag of Jelly Babies doesn't count (not fair!)

Is the air really cleaner, or have we just switched to more stealthy polutants. At what point did I actually ought to worry about any of this, I mean should I only worry about the elements in which I have a controlling factor. Let's face it, I drink, I smoke, I eat good stuff and bad stuff, and really don't move as much or as energetically as I should. I expose myself to stressful situations, and potentially dangerous environments, and drive a car on roads full of numpties. The GM guys are in it for the notariety and wealth IMHO, but I probably have far bigger things to worry my ugly little head about

BTW - I'm not a pessimist, just an experienced optomist

[Ladyslip]

I'm another in the deeply sceptical camp ..........The GM guys are in it for the notoriety and wealth IMHO, but I probably have far bigger things to worry my ugly little head about

BTW - I'm not a pessimist, just an experienced optomist

I'd sit pretty much in the same camp I'm afraid........with some fairly unpleasant experiences of what large companies are all about........We'll continue to romantically grow our own for as long as we can....and grumble and swear bout the blight...mice. and other plagues that beset our best efforts.......we're also lucky enough....if that's the right way to say it....to produce some of our own meat....)