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More on GM and Bees

The possible link between GM crops has been in the news more lately. An article in the German newspaper Der Spiegel revealed a recent study that showed an AIDS like syndrome in affected bees, and exposure to Bt caused a significantly faster progression of the disease.

Jouni Ylinen recently pointed me to a study that was done 2001-2004 which observed a similar problem, so it’s not like it’s been a secret this whole time. Note near the bottom of the page, where it says:

A chance infestation by parasites (microsporidia) resulted in more significant damage to the Bt-fed colonies. The underlying mechanism which causes this effect is unknown.

Bt works by damaging the gut on certain insects, and causing it to rupture. Until now Bt was thought to only attack very specific insects that are susceptible to it, and be non toxic to others. Apparently the toxicity of Bt may not be fully understood.

A seeming unrelated story has emerged in South Africa, on babies with HIV. Transmission of the disease is lower in breastfed babies, and the reason they think is because infant formulas irritate the gut, which more easily allows the virus to pass into the body.

Could these two unrelated news items actually be related?

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Link Between Disappearing Bees and GM Crops?

For some time now bee keepers in the US have noticed their bees have been disappearing, the so called Colony Collapse Disorder.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this problem. The vast majority of our food crops are pollinated by insects, and quite simply without the insects there can be no harvest. Bees are among the most important pollinating insects.

A Pennsylvania bee farmer has a theory why this is happening. He thinks it’s because of GM crops engineered to produce Bt, a naturally occurring pesticide.

I say naturally occurring, because it’s present in small quantities in the environment. In these GM crops however, it’s another story. Crops engineered to produce Bt do so in very large quantities. It’s produced by every cell in the plant including roots, stems, leaves and flowers. It’s also present in the pollen of these plants. The amount of Bt in these plants is enough to trigger allergies in some people, and irritate the skin and eyes of farmers who handle the crops. In India, when sheep were used to clear a field of left over Bt cotton, several sheep died after eating it.

Even if this farmer’s theory turns out not to be true, it should really serve as a wake up call. The genetic contamination from these GM crops has long ago left the fields where they were grown, and if it is necessary to clean it up, it could prove to be enormously difficult. GM contamination is after all the only self-replicating contamination human beings have ever released into the environment.

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GM Medicine Rice

The US Department of Agriculture appears to be in the final stages of approval for commercial planting of a variety of rice genetically modified with human DNA. This is the first of what is expected to be a large number of crops developed to produce medicine. This particular variety of rice will contain a medicine used to treat diarrhoea and dehydration. Future GM crops are planned for treating diseases like measles, cancer treatments and contraceptives.

What this means is if pollen escapes from these commercial farms and contaminates similar food crops, then our food will likely contain the same medicines. How likely is this to happen? The company producing this variety of rice says there is “no risk”. Consider that Europe recently discovered that supposedly non GM rice imported from the US was in fact contaminated with an unapproved GM variety, that had unknowingly escaped from a research facility. Because there is no regular testing, this contamination went undetected for unknown period, but was probably months or years.

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Learning Latin

For people who save seeds or breed their own varieties, learning the Latin names of your plants can tell you a lot about them. For example, if you want to know if plants will cross pollinate with each other, the Latin name can give you clues to this. The Latin name can also give you clues about hardiness, cultivation methods and so on. Scientists assign Latin names in order to group similar plants together.

Another reason for using the Latin names for plants, is it eliminates confusion caused by local languages. When a vegetable is called a swede in the UK and a rutabaga in the US, and you don’t know what to call it when talking to a German speaking gardener, calling it Brassica napus eliminates the confusion!

I’m just going to list a few examples here, for a more complete listing you should consult a seed savers manual or a plant dictionary. There are a number of online resources for this as well.

Latin names contain three parts the family, genus and species. For vegetable growers, the most important families are Amaryllidaceae (Onions and related), Brassicaceae (Cabbages and related), Chenopodiaceae (Beets and related), Compositae (Lettuce and related), Cucurbitaceae (Pumpkins and related), Leguminosae (Beans and related), Solanaceae (Tomatoes and related) and Umbelliferae (Carrots and related).

Lets have a closer look at one of these families, for example the Brassicaceae family. Most plants are referred to by their genus and species, so in the above example of Brassica napus, Brassica is the genus and napus is the species. Here are a few more common examples within this family:

Armoracia rusticana: Horseradish

Brassica oleracea: Cabbage, Broccoli and others

Brassica rapa: Turnip, Chinese Cabbage and others

Eruca sativa: Rocket

So how can you use this information? Well let’s say you wanted to grow turnips next to rutabagas (swedes), and you want to know if they will cross. The Latin name for turnip is Brassica rapa, and for rutabagas Brassica napus. By looking at the Latin names it is not completely clear in this case, because they are from the same genus but different species. Again based only on the Latin names you could conclude that a cross would be less likely to occur with Rocket (Eruca sativa), because both the genus and species are different, but in fact a cross between plants of different species doesn’t usually happen, so growing rutabagas and turnips next to each other would probably not result in a cross.

What about other kinds of genetic compatibility? Rebsie on Daughter of the Soil recently discussed grafting potato scions onto tomato root stock, for the purpose of making large numbers of potato seeds (not to be confused with seed potatoes!). A scion is the term for a branch or piece of foliage, cut in a way that is intended to be spliced to the roots of another plant. Let’s look at this from the point of view of the plant’s Latin names. Both potatoes and tomatoes belong to the family Solanaceae, and the Latin names are as follows:

Lycopersicon lycopersicum: Tomato

Solanum tuberosum: Potato

In this case the genus and species are both different, but being in the same family it seems is enough compatibility for the plants to be grafted together. It’s very unlikely these two plants would ever cross pollinate with each other however.