Amazing - the brand new 997

[kandrathe]

The only ways, as far as I can see, to truely prevent GM plants from "infecting" other organically-natural crop is to modify them to such that their reproductive systems no longer function, or create mini-eco systems, totally seperate from others, to grow the plants in. Neither is very practical.

Barbara McClintock belatedly won the Nobel Prize for discovering that genes in corn plants would jump through cell walls. Even preventing reproduction would not prevent genetic materials from seeping from the GM plants. The only possible way I can see is to prevent the two populations from coming into contact with each other.

A fundemental law of the universe, paraphrased, is that in any closed system, you can only get out as much as you put in. This is also true for farming. Simply put, you cannot expect crop yield of acceptable nutrient value unless the soil, or what ever substance the plants are grown in, is replenished with nutrients before and during the growth cycle. Most vegetables and fruits produces today already have relatively low levels of nutrients, and no amount of generic engineering is going to change the fact that your crop is only as good as the soil you grow them in.

I think by far the most common hydrocarbon fertilizer used by farmers is Anhydrous ammonia. This only supplies nitrogen and so I think most farmers must supplement their land with other nutrient sources. What I was getting at is that genetic selection and alterations can produce plants that do better in poorer soils. The nutrients taken from the land need to be replaced, usually by animal wastes or other chemical sources. Selecting plants that produce higher yeilds given the same nutrient levels in the soil can offset the need to fertilize as heavily, which IMHO is a good thing.

Plants require 13 mineral nutrient elements for growth. The elements that are required or necessary for plants to complete their life cycle are called essential plant nutrients. Each of these nutrients has a critical function in plants and are required in varying amounts in plant tissue (Table 1). Macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur) are plant nutrients required in the largest amount in plants. Micronutrients (iron, copper, manganese, zinc, boron, molybdenum and chlorine) are required in relatively smaller amounts. Additional mineral nutrient elements which are beneficial to plants but not necessarily essential include sodium, cobalt, vanadium, nickel, selenium, aluminum and silicon.