summary of lunch today

[David R. Waddell]

After thinking about this GURT system, I'm not sure it is at all practical.
The three most important aspects of a crop variety are yield,
yield and yield. If a company develops a variety that significantly 
increases yield, I don't think they could protect it in this way.

The terminator gene is also susceptible to mutation and there
is the strongest possible selection for it (only those that mutate survive
the second year). So if the variety is really that good, a farmer
will simply plant out enough seeds to get the mutation that allows
plant to survive to the next generation. So they will be able to
plant the new variety without the terminator gene in the third, 
or fourth year. Since it is different because of the mutation
it may even be completely legal as far as patent laws are concerned.

The patents are difficult to defend in foreign countries anyway. I think
the BT cotton (resistant to caterpillers because of a gene from Bacillus
thurengensis) showed up in Mexico and Egypt without being purchased from
Monsanto. I think Monsanto would have a difficult time proving that they
are using their strain, since the technolgy to develop the strains is
in the public domain. However, it is almost certainly Monsanto's variety
that was stolen. This cotton had very good resistance during testing and
the first couple of years. However, the insects are already showing resistance.
All the leaves produce the BT gene product all the time, so there is again
a very strong selection. It would be better if the gene was only expressed
when a caterpillar infestation was underway.

BTW Most maize planted in the Midwest is hybrid and its quality decreases
in subsequent generations if the farmer chooses to plant it. For maize, farmers are already dependent on the seed producing companies and I don't think we
are worse off for it.

David

At 04:58 PM 9/5/02 -0600, Ed L. wrote:
>On Thursday 05 September 2002 02:25 pm, Tim Chambers wrote:
>> ...Genetic research (Ed warned us about Monsanto -- I'll let him
>> fill in the details 'cause I'd get it wrong and couldn't find Web pages
>> to back up what I thought I heard)...
>
>Well, now that our lunchtime conversation has become fodder for google 
>archives and future world generations, I should clarify that the 
>conversation was regarding what is known as Genetic Use Restriction 
>Technology (GURT).  GURT is *existing* technology that enables 
>genetic alteration of crop seeds to, among other things, cause them to 
>become sterile or produce sterile seeds, thereby forcing a purchase of new 
>seeds (or an activating agent) from a fortunate supplier.  [The 
>millenia-old practice is to save seeds from this year's crop for future 
>years planting.]  A google search for "pharmacia monsanto starlink 
>terminator" or "astrazeneca gurt" will yield more than you probably ever 
>wanted to know.  Here's a clip from Cornell for the curious:
>
>	http://www.comm.cornell.edu/gmo/issues/terminator.html
>
>And what does this have to do with perl?  Well, nothing, really.
>
>Cheers,
>Ed
>