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Wheat

• As of right now, no GM wheat is being grown anywhere in the world.

• In 2002, Monsanto submitted an appliation to the United States and Canada for the approval of an herbicide resistant, GM wheat cultivar. However, Monsanto withdrew its application two years later.

• Because markets in Europe and Asia are skeptical about GM crops, many farmers feared that their products would be rejected by these countries. Concerns about export markets overpowered the potential advantages offered by herbicide resistance.

• In mild and moist conditions, fungal diseases can develop and spread quickly among wheat crops. One disease that poses especially serious problems is Fusarium.

• Wheat infected with Fusarium will either fail to produce grains, produce small and stunted yields, or contain dangerous substances that can impact the health of humans and livestock.

• Certain strains of Fusarium produce mycotoxins. Mycotoxins is a general term for posionous substances produced by fungi. These dangerours mycotoxins remain in food during processing and can lead to chronic and acute diseases when consumed.

• When consumed in high concentrations, these mycotoxins can cause nausea, vomiting, and have been known to affect hormonal balances.

• As of right now, there is no efficent way of stopping the Fusarium infection responsible for yield losses and mycotoxin contamination worldwide.

• Genetic engineering opens doors to new approaches towards managing Fusarium and other fungal diseases. Scientists are currently developing and field testing genetic approaches to conferring resistance to these dangerous fungal diseases.

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Sugar Beets

• Commercial planting of a GM herbicide-tolerant sugar beet crop began in the United States in 2008. This is expected to minimize weed management.

• This sugar beet is approved for import into the European Union, as well as for food and feed processing. However, it is not yet authorized for cultivation.

• Compared to other crops, sugar beets require the most intensive and frequent use of weed control products. After the seeds are sown, sugar beets grow very slowly. Wild grasses and weeds are usually much more effective in competing for sunlight, water, and nutrients. Without extensive weed control, young sugar beet plants are hardly able to develop themselves.

• Without weed management, sugar beet yield would reduce about 75%.

• Herbicides, machine use, and other equipment are big cost factors for sugar beet farmers. Because of this, KWS Saat AG, a German seed company, developed the GM H7-1 sugar beet.

• This company used a concept from Monsanto that had already been used with soybeans and other crops.

• As a result of a novel gene, the sugar beet was made resistant to the active ingredient glyphosate, which was marketed under the named Roundup as a universal herbicide.

• Glyphosate works by blocking the production of certain amino acids in all green plants. As a result, the plants affected by glyphosate would stop growing and die. The effect of this herbicide is neutralized in GM plants that are resistant.

• Glyphosate has been used as a herbicide since 1975 for its desirable qualities. After a mere 30 to 40 days, glyphosate completely breaks down in the soil and causes little to no negative impacts on the environment.

• Using glyphosate as a weed control is very advantageous to farmers, for it requires only one ingredient, unlike most convential herbicides. The farmers are now able to refocus their time and money towards other problems.

• After successful field trials of the H7-1 sugar beets in Idaho, commercial cultivation of the GM sugar beet began in the United States in 2008.

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Potatoes

• Over the past few years, potatoes have been losing their value as a food crop and have been growing as an important prospect in the starch and chemical industry.

• For starch potatoes, taste is not what is significant; instead, emphasis is placed on the quality and composition of the starch.

• Only one in four potatoes grown in Europe actually gets eaten by people. Almost half end up being fed to livestock and the remaining quarter is used as raw material for the production of alcohol and starch.

• Potatoes contain a mixture of two different kinds of starch, both of which have very different properties.

  • Amylopectin, making up 80% of the starch content in potatoes, consists of large, highly-branched molecules. Amylopectin makes starch soluble in water and gives it its characteristic stickiness. This particular type of starch is very useful in the food, paper, and chemical industries as paste, glue, or as a lubricant.

  • The other kind of starch found in potatoes is amylose. Amylose is made up of long, chain-like molecules. Unlike amylopectin, amylose is used predominantly in the production of films and foils.

• Because amylopectain and amylose are mixed together in most potatoes, the procesing industry must seperate the two starches using expensive processes that are damaging to the environment. For this reason, plant breeders are working hard to develop potatoes that only produce one type of starch.

• Due to its diverse application, emphasis has been placed on producing potatoes containing only amylopectin.

• Genetic engineering offers a targeted approach to supressing the production of amylose.

• Currently, much work is being done with genetic engineering in order to confer resistance to Phytophthora infestans. This disease is also known as late blight of potato. Some consider this to be the most dangerous disease among plants because of its tendency to spread extremely rapidly in warm and moist conditions. This disease is best known for causing the Irish Potato Famine of 1846-1850.

• Today, the disease continues to be a major problem. Due to its extreme flexibility, the disease has been able to survive every management effort used thus far and had responded with new, adapted strains.

• In the meantime, genetic engineers have come up with a promising new strategy to combat this devestating disease. The first field trials with fungus resistant GM potatoes are already underway and the next few years will show if this new concept is effective.

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Rice

• Rice makes up the main food source for almost half of the world's population. For thousands of years, farmers have been cultivating and breeding rice. Modern plant breeders continue to improve the ability of rice to defend itself against diseases.

• Rice is grown in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. Rice cultivation is especially concentrated in China, India, and Southeast Asia. These regions compose about 90% of global rice production, mostly produced by small-scale farmers.

• Thailand the world's leading rice exporter, while Italy is the most important rice producer in Europe.

• Controlling weeds and pests are the main reasons why 80% of the world's rice fields are flooded. Rice was not originally an aquatic plant, but it adapted to the flooded conditions by breeding.

• The GM rice cultivar (LL62) has been approved in the United States; however no large scale productions have taken place.

• Genetic engineering is among the various methods being used to meet breeding goals, namely, to develop robust, high yielding cultivars that require little or no spraying, custom tailored to specific regional conditions. Genetic engineering offers possibilites for conferring resistance to viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens. Other important goals include tolerance to drought and salinity.

• China is the leading rice breeding researcher, where hopes are high for insect reistant cultivars.

• Golden rice is the most well-known example of genetic engineering projects directed towards altering rice's nutritional value. To read more about this innovative crop, click here.

• In Japan, researchers are trying to repres the activity of a gene that leads to the formation of an important allergen (AS-Albumin). This allergen is a major problem for people with rice allergies.

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