Translated material
Vaccination from phytophthora
Recently in Ireland, official permission was given for field testing of genetically modified potatoes resistant to late blight. The event, in my opinion, is not at all ordinary for two reasons.
Firstly, the last field tests of genetically modified crops in this country (and this was the sugar beet of the famous company Monsanto) took place a full decade and a half ago and ended in the destruction of the plots by members of an extremist-environmental organization.
Secondly, potatoes and late blight played a very bright and tragic role in the history of the island, which perhaps no other crop and its disease have played in the history of mankind.
Not so long ago, just over one and a half hundred years ago, in Russia, by force, contrary to public opinion, the authorities forced people to plant the “devil’s apple,” which later became a national Russian product. But the people didn’t know this then and didn’t want to plant them. People rose up in potato riots at the same time when, for example, in Ireland potatoes were already the most important, key food product. So important that late blight, which destroyed a significant part of the crop for several years in a row, led to a reduction in the population of this country, according to various estimates, by 20-30%. Some simply died of starvation, others were forced to emigrate. This tragic period, called the Great Famine, is forever immortalized in the history books, and the debate about who was more to blame, late blight or the British, continues to this day.
Late blight is perhaps the biggest enemy of potato growers. For a summer resident growing potatoes in his garden, the disease, of course, is not very scary, although it is not very pleasant. In industrial production conditions, disease control becomes one of the main tasks. on fungicides alone (chemicals used to combat fungal plant diseases. - Ed.) In the UK, for example, producers spend about 500 pounds per hectare of plantings . And all these fungicides do not provide 100% protection.
By the way, the potato variety that is going to be planted on the experimental plot is not truly transgenic. More likely, cis-genic. The fact is that the resistance gene that scientists awarded to the plant was obtained not from third-party species, but from “wild” potatoes, a relative of modern cultivated varieties. To find the right piece of DNA, about a hundred inedible, wild relatives of the potato were examined. Having identified the species least susceptible to late blight, scientists identified genes in it that are responsible for resistance to the disease and “transplanted” them into a modern variety.
All the advantages of such potatoes are obvious. We will be able to obtain a stable harvest without using fungicides, which will have a necessary impact on the environmental situation and on the price of the final product. The “greens,” who are so actively fighting to preserve “genetic purity,” also seem to have nothing to fear: we do not introduce anything “alien” into the genetics of the plant, something that could not be achieved using traditional methods. Eventually we give up the use of poisons. What could be better?
But opponents, of course, were found, as always happens, among the “greens” and the “organic” food producers who joined them. The claims are predictable, naive and personally do not seem very smart to me. For example, they sound like this:
— There are no problems with late blight in agriculture!
- If we can do this through selection, then why do we need GMOs?
“We don’t know how this will affect insects!”
It is difficult to object to the first claim, because it is simply a consequence of the reluctance to open your eyes. The rest are a little easier.
Of course, a resistant variety could be obtained without the services of genetic engineering, through crossing and artificial selection. But it would take an order of magnitude longer, and the result, unfortunately, would be less predictable. Where is the guarantee that, in addition to the trait of resistance to late blight, we would not receive other, unnecessary traits of a wild relative? For example, low yield or inedibility. Why do it for a long time and unreliably, if you can do it quickly and with a guaranteed result? Maybe that’s why there is still no such variety?
And the cultivation of this new variety will not affect insects, worms, or any living thing except late blight and humans. Because the only new, very necessary trait is resistance to the disease. Because potato flowers are self-pollinating and genes cannot “escape” anywhere further than their own flower. And even if they suddenly “run away” and cross-pollinate some bush from the garden of a neighboring farm where 100% organic, non-GMO potatoes are grown, then nothing will happen anyway. No one in their right mind today plants potatoes with seeds; tubers are traditionally used for this. And tubers, you know, are vegetative propagation; they do not cross-pollinate.
Personally, I hope for positive test results. I don't even doubt the results. If only there weren’t any more nature lovers ready to destroy plantings. And then, in a few years, it will be possible to write another chapter in the potato history of Ireland, a positive one. And, of course, I am waiting for the next step from biotechnologists - potatoes that are resistant to late blight and the Colorado potato beetle at the same time. I still hope that such potatoes will reach Russia, but this time without potato riots.
Mother, let's live!
Sergey Belkov
www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/mar/23/ireland-field-trials-gm-potatoes