Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi Alan,
It certainly should put paid to Peter Melchett's announcements but come on now this is Peter Melchett we are talking about.
He will be playing the dutiful Captain clinging to the deck of his sinking ship and no doubt still singing the "Dogmatists Hymn" as he slips beneath the waves! Oh I wish!
JB.

Johnboy. Reminds me of a guvnor many years ago, speaking of someone so blinkered he couldn't see the the wood for the trees. He use to say, he is so deep in the rut, that he can-not see anything outside. [made sense at the time]

An interesting item on Farming Today this morning on the Norwich trials. In an awful blight year the GM Maris Piper and Desiree have resisted blight without any fungicide. Good news (or bad, depending on your outlook).

It's the second item on this iPlayer link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... 2_09_2012/

So the trials were successful!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26189722

"In 2012, the third year of the trial, all the non-GM potatoes became infected with late blight by August while the modified vegetables remained fully resistant to the end of the experiment. There was also a difference in yield, with the GM variety producing double the amount of tubers."

But silly restrictions have hampered their research:

One area the scientists cannot comment on is the taste, as they were barred from eating the GM variety. However, they do not believe there is any mechanism by which the new genes can impact the flavour.

And we are unlikely to see the benefit of this great piece of non-commercially funded research in the near future:

The scientists believe the big challenge will be in getting regulatory approval for the new variety in Europe. The researchers have licensed the technology to an American company, Simplot, which wants to grow them in the US. "I think it is unfortunate that American farmers are going to benefit from the fruits of European taxpayers' funded work way before Europeans," said Prof Jones. "This kind of product will likely be on the US market within a couple of years and if we are lucky within eight to 10 years in Europe."

And the luddites are gathering already (expect a post from JW), pity we don't still have deportation for life:

"Critics of GM crops said that no matter how big the scale of the environmental benefits, they believe that consumers will not be interested.
"Is anyone really going to grow, sell or buy genetically modified potatoes?" said Liz O'Neil, director of GM Freeze."

The Soil Association are getting worked up as usual.

http://www.soilassociation.org/news/new ... t-potatoes

https://www.facebook.com/soilassociation