GM Potato Blight trials to go ahead.

[John Walker]

I posted the Soil Association press release merely 'for information' as indicated. Apologies for not making clear the source (although that is pretty obvious when you read it). Pedal: well spotted.

[SimonJFoster]

Hi Simon

I'm sure you won't mind my posting this link to your TV interview on Look East.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-11151927

Absolutely no problem at all Alan (and apologies, not had chance to catch up with these posts until now).

[SimonJFoster]

Hi Alan,
In the website the person from GM Watch is factually incorrect in what he says or suggests. He is saying that non GM research can do what GM has done in the research which is to insert a blight resistant gene into an existing popular variety of potato. As it stands with the Savari Trust Experiments they cannot do anything to an existing variety and all of there progeny are new varieties of potato. The difficulty with this conventional hybridizing is that they have to get the public to accept a new taste in potatoes and that is very difficult.
JB.

Absolutely spot on. Taking the GM approach, and having an 'arsenal' of different blight resistance genes available (to deploy as genes are overcome) would mean that commercial growers and the public will be able to buy blight resistant potatoes that retain all of the characteristics (taste, texture, cooking qualities) that have taken so long to breed.

Of course I have no idea what David Shaw has up his sleeve and quite honestly I would like both his hybrids and the GM hybrids to be equally accepted.
JB.

We hope also that David's work is a success. One of the points we always try to get across is that we don't see this as 'the GM way or no way'. GM is just one of the tools available to us and should be used in combination with breeding and existing crop management practices (with less fungicide input into the environment though).

It's also worth bearing in mind that what we can achieve with GM is limited in scope. We can produce a blight resistant potato but we cannot create new varieties of potato in the same way that breeding can. Only breeders will be able to come up with new varieties that offer different tastes, textures etc. But wouldn't it be great if breeders didn't have to worry about blight resistance as part of their breeding programmes? They could concentrate on all of the qualities that make the product acceptable to the market and then 'add in' the blight resistance.

[SimonJFoster]

Interesting to see the SA crowing victory over the FSA GM dialogue issue. The statement on the FSA website reads:

'Ministers have confirmed to the Food Standards Agency that the GM (genetic modification) dialogue project will not continue in its current format.

The details of the Government’s policy on the use of GM technology in food and agriculture are still being determined and any future public engagement will be an element of this.'

'in its current format' and 'policy............still being determined' are the key phrases I pick out from it.

[Johnboy]

Hi Simon,
Thank you for making time to keep us informed in what must be an exceedingly heavy schedule.
There are so many examples of The Soil Association crowing that they have managed to do this and that when in truth they have done nothing.
A very good example of this crowing is when it was reported that Organic milk contains more Omega 3 than conventionally produced milk. What they omitted to further say was that when the milk was processed the Omega 3 increase disappears altogether with the processing. Some Gain!
The new government this week have proposed that the culling of Badgers
should go ahead under strict licence in order to try to eliminate Bovine TB
and whereas the policy on GM may have shifted as it stands nobody knows which way the shift will be. As you say "fingers crossed."
I sincerely hope that the SA crowing was simply another false dawn!
The strange thing is that I visualize GM as the "New Organics" because I feel that the SA only use GM as a way of furthering their own ends and once they can be exposed to the public for what they really are, their popularity will wain dramatically.
I wish you the very best in your endeavours.
Sincerely,
JB.

[alan refail]

For information

Official press release for David Willett's speech

Another significant phrase to add to Stephen's: all policies will be based on robust evidence

The Soil Association's "victory" could be shorter-lived than they imagine.

[alan refail]

Latest on the trials - protest planned

http://gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-new ... in-norfolk

[the custodian]

my farther and i have had our own little expirement this year regarding potatoes, i planted 15 potatoes bought from sainsbury and allowed them to chit, my farther bought 15 seed potatoes from a well known supplier.
i have had no blight what so ever and less purchase cost while my farther has lost every plant to blight. we have used the same compost from the same supplier only thing we did different was where the potatoes came from.
i know i will probably but told of by some members for gardening is this manner but i must say the results speak for themselves

[Shallot Man]

the custodian.

During WW2, seed potatoes was the top inch of a sprouting potato that mum cut off prior to cooking , it was left cut up until it had a callous, then put on the seed tray till planting time, do not recall any blight.

[Geoff]

Alan - I'm not really sure you should be giving such garbage the oxygen of publicity.

[alan refail]

Alan - I'm not really sure you should be giving such garbage the oxygen of publicity.

I thought it might be useful to see just how ignorant the "protesters" are!

[Nature's Babe]

We are all gardeners and the lack of transparency perhaps on both sides is divisive. If the resistent gene is from a wild relative of the potato, surely that tells us something about the resilience and strength of natural selection? Domestic plants can cross pollinate with wild relatives anyway so I also find it difficult to see why it needs expensive GM technology to develop? In the case of GM seed they don't come true and are often sterile does the same apply to GM potatoes? In that case as with the banks is it not a bit dangerous to have just one company with complete control madly patenting all they can get their hands on, especially when it is our food supply? Surely an element of competition would be better, as with the banks ? Has patenting seeds ever been challenged legally? Seeds were freely available to us all for millions of years, I can appreciate paying someone for growing, selectng and packing seeds.
However only one company having control of development in this direction concerns me.

[alan refail]

Seeds were freely available to us all for millions of years

Come, come! Millions of years?

I had reason recently to correct a website with links to Indian mysticism which made exactly the same nonsensical statement. They thanked me and corrected it.

[Nature's Babe]

It won't deny you the pleasure of correcting me at every turn Alan, if it amuses you, but I think most people are sensible enough to realise I mean for a very long time, generations after generations in fact. Isn't it something like at least 10,000 years ago somewhere in the middle east, Ancient china and Egypt also had a long history of cultivation too, and yes prior to that it seems we were hunter-gatherers

[Johnboy]

Hi NB,
It is patently clear that you know very little about the science behind GM and what you think you know has been gathered from anti-GM websites which are really a very unreliable source of information.
The reason why the current GM Potato Blight Trial has cost a lot of money is because the threat of the crop being trashed by the anti GM lobby.
Even as I write these people are planning something to interrupt the trial.
The way you have been writing of late makes me believe that these people have your backing. Please oh please tell me that I am wrong.
Your assumptions on the dates regarding modern vegetables are way off the mark and I very much doubt that you have anything before 1850 so this thousands is now cut to a hundred and Sixty and most of the common vegetables date firmly in the 20th century and that includes Heritage seeds as well which cuts the time down to around a Hundred Years at the very most.
What is the saying; "For the ten thousandth time stop exaggerating!"
JB.