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GM 'Super-Weed' Fears Challenged

(Summary)

According to BBC Online, GM crops ‘show no signs of turning into super-weeds. Conducting a 10-year study that researchers planted GM varieties of oilseed rape, potato, maize and sugar beet alongside conventional crops in 12 different areas in the UK to see if GM plants could “invade” natural habitats.

“Environmentalists have argued that GM crops might crossbreed with wild plants, producing more weedy offspring. But the Imperial College team found that native wild plants displaced both GM and ordinary crops and that the GM crops were actually outlived by the conventional ones. Reporting their findings in the science journal Nature, the researchers said most of the crops died out after four years, and after 10 years the only survivor was one type of non-GM potato.”

One of the reports authors, Rosemary Hails, said that “we wouldn't expect herbicide tolerance to give a plant an ecological advantage” and that the results were no surprise.

CropGen, a scientific group which is supported by the crop industry, welcomed the study. "These results confirm what many plant geneticists and ecologists have long expected: that super-weeds are not lurking round the corner of every GM plantation," CropGen's Professor Howard Slater said.

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