Science for the win: New wheat variety beats superbug, has higher yield

Science for the win: New wheat variety beats superbug, has higher yield

blog.chron.com

Some 90 percent of the wheat grown in the world today is susceptible to a new form of wheat rust, a crop-killing virus dubbed the “polio of agriculture.”
Ravi Singh, a wheat breeding expert at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, and colleagues from Africa and the U.S. Department of Agriculture report this week on new varieties of wheat under development that have resistance to several rusts of wheat, including UG99.
It’s also significant, the scientists note, that some of the new varieties of wheat yield 10 to 15 percent more than current wheat cultivars

(visit the link for the full news article)

This couldn’t have come at a better time. Up to 90 per cent of wheat now in production, including most of the wheat grown in the Americas, Asia and Africa is susceptible to Ug99, an evolving wheat pathogen, and its variants. The price of bread has been a major destabilizing factor in many developing nations and been a contributing factor in the recent violence.

But, since this is the result of wicked “genetic modification” I suppose the reply from many will be “too bad, starve”. But I suppose feeding hungry people is less important than stopping the spread of “frankenfood”.


blog.chron.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm getting a wiff of Bovine extract I mean Monsanto/Bayer in the air.

I'm all for feeding the masses but when I hear or read about GM foods I see $ and then all I have to do is look at Human history and know it's going to be bad. We already see how their business practices have been hell on the little guy farmer and smaller poorer countries with Monsanto/Bayer suing them over inadvertent cross Crop Contamination Yes, I said contamination of existing natural crops with their Frankenstein creations.

This sucks!

I would be curious to know if these scientists are drawing a pay check from Monsanto thru the back door somewhere. They do control our food for the majority.

These days, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

When the food chain gets altered, it always has adverse effects on the soil, plants, insects, animals, rivers etc. And then of course, there's us.

I'm not saying this is the case but it deserves watching IMO.

ok, so you volunteer for the human trials of the sterilization GMO's And how did the new rust variety spread so quickly anyway? Plant diseases spread when the plant is grown in less than optimal conditions...if the soil was ok in nutrients, then the crop should've been too.

You're right.

I'd rather eat wheat with rust . . than GM seed that I can't trust.


(Once again, it's not about feeding starving people, it's about control and money!)

for thousands of years nateral evolution between "bugs" and "plants" have occoured
for millions of years an "arms" race was carried out between plants and bugs
and with one GMO orginism to "disarm" the bugs
we have set our selves up for crops that dont fight back
that dont evolve with the "bugs"
we have thought that we were helping the plants

TURNS OUT WE WERE HELPING THE BUGS

do we really believe that this is a good thing
i do think feeding the world is important
but allowing the "arms race" to occour naturally ensures genetic diversity
so when other "bugs come along"
the plants can adapt to survive

WE ARE PUTTING ALL OUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

genetic diversity is the way of nature

only man pretends to be greater than her

this will distroy the world for all peoples
not just the ones that are starving now

humans are soo blind

xploder

Yeah what Slayer69 said.
Does this wheat come complete with it's own terminator gene?
Is this manipulated or genetically modified?
There is a difference.

I am curious about the "how" details. If the genetic manipulation enables the plant to fight off rust, naturally, then that is one thing. If, however, they do like they did in the doc King Corn Movie, and make a plant that is less susceptible to mold/pests BECAUSE they can spray copious amounts of fertilizer/pesticides on it, and the plant endures the toxicity, then that is not cool with me.
Whatever happened to splicing/grafting and cross-breeding(hybridization) the old fashion way, taking several generations of a mutant strain to work out the kinks? I am guessing timeframe and profits maybe?

Peace,
spec

reply to post by SirMike


90% of the weat has weat rust?
whats the percentage of weat grown that is GMO?
when did this weat rust start spreading?

mmmm
seams to favour monsanto and their GMO poisen that this "rust"
is spread

coincidence
monsanto to the rescue?
do we really look that stupid? really?

xploder

not quite sure if i wanna eat something that has ben rejected by insects.... it has to be bad, just has to.
seeing as i dont see any details unto how the crop was changed

No, we don't need any more GMO. I have heritage seeds but no land, and lots of wheat and others. I'll be growing in trays, and collecting the seeds, until I have reams.

reply to post by jude11


The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell University was founded by Norman Bourlag and is coordinating this effort on a global scale with other academic institutions.

reply to post by SirMike


are you trolling ats
or do you really think trying to beat nature
is a smart idea?

look everyones starving
lets feed them GMO poision food
that will fix the problem

xploder

Anybody else remember this?

Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto's GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.

According to the study, which was summarized by Rady Ananda at Food Freedom, "Three varieties of Monsanto's GM corn - Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 - were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities."

You know one of the saddest part about all of this? Trust lost....
No one knows how much altruism exists anymore, particularly in our profit driven societies. Follow the money so often leads to a place of greed and putting profits before people. I am not so hardened(yet) that I can't see some genuine benefit from this wonderful era of incredible tech development, including plant gene manipulation, but would I feed it to my children? Not without more certainty and trust....

Peace,
spec

stop people!

your sceering me i dont wanna die from eating corn like a low down dirty stinking rattt!!!


there is a solution to this: gmos for ethanol production higher yeilding crops will yield more fuel sources

which means gmo only goes to fuel production not human consumption

i do know for a fact for every technological leap older technology is lost.

same with seed production i do agree messing with mother nature aint the best of ideas

she can be your best friend or your worst nightmare.

reply to post by SLAYER69


the other point is that with genetic diversity the plants can survive
with GMO all they can do is keep adding genetic defences
this atitude is proberly caused the rust problem in the first place

well i suppose if the idea of feeding the starving is to cause their death then i guess you would solve the starving problem for a very long term.

i have read reports of fertility declining in countries that eat this GMO poision
maby if they kill us all or make us infirtile then we would have fixed the food shortage problems

on another note
the usa subsidises wheat production
and they grow so much that some is "dumped" as to keep the prices high

so what is the real problem here
subsidised farming practice or not enough food to go around?

the GMO wheat has put our weat farmers out of business
so is that the real problem

i think the op is trolling he even hints to it in his op
using starvation to "press the buttons"
when control is acually the reason

if people are starving give them non GMO seeds
give a man food..................................
give the same man non GMO seeds and he will feed himself for life

but terminator seeds are the oposite they are CONTROL

thanks for the link to the reasurch

xploder

reply to post by neo96

You mean you wouldn't even feed the gmo corn to your lib friends?
But seriously, gmo's for fuel is not a bad idea except that keeping the 2 crops from pollinating each other is a real problem, especially when Monsanto is aggressively suing farmers with adjacent fields that are pollinated by the dang wind.

spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


i choose my freinds wisely and i cant be friends whose hands are always in my wallet


as to cross pollination not really a factor consider how they produce seed corn in the first place

male male populations female female populations thats a no brainer.