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Post by MikeH on Dec 23, 2011 3:31:13 GMT -5
Even open pollinated crops, and heirloom crops can carry the trait, and The Corporation is not disclosing that information to the public. [If I was in a bad mood today, I would claim that it is an evil conspiracy.] If a seed seller is certified organic and carries only open pollinated heirlooms, how does CMS get introduced into his seeds? I'm not saying it doesn't because we've had carrot seeds from such a seller that have had very poor germination rates even with repeat sowings. That's what I thought you were going to say. Looks like my personal relationship with what we grow is about to become even more personal. Regards, Mike
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 23, 2011 12:37:14 GMT -5
If a seed seller is certified organic and carries only open pollinated heirlooms, how does CMS get introduced into his seeds? I'm not saying it doesn't because we've had carrot seeds from such a seller that have had very poor germination rates even with repeat sowings. Certified Organic is not connected in any way with Cytoplasmic Male Sterility... To demonstrate this search for F1 organic onion seed. There will be thousands of offerings, and all of them are CMS. Before I could even attempt a response, we'd have to define heirloom. I am certain that there is a heck of a lot of seed being traded as heirlooms, which is descended from one of The Corporation's seed packs from only a few years ago. A seed doesn't become an heirloom just because it's origin has been forgotten. It is a trivial thing, for a seed company to back-cross an open pollinated heirloom line onto a male sterile line. And there is no legal requirement for them to disclose that they have done it. I have a dark and dismal opinion of The Corporation, and I speculate that they are deliberately converting open pollinated heirloom crops into CMS crops so that people have to come back for fresh heirloom seed every year. But setting aside my pessimism. Perhaps I should say, expressing my pessimism in a different way... It is trivially easy to introduce cytoplasmic male sterility into a crop... It's as simple as inadvertently planting a hybrid and saving seed from it. My open pollinated carrot crop is about 70% male sterile. It grows great, and produces roots and seeds as expected, but it's an embarrassment to me. (Even though I grew a pound of seed, it's not on my trade list.) If I hadn't strayed into an analysis of cytoplasmic male sterility, I could have been offering this seed as an "open pollinated landrace" never realizing how incongruous such an offering would be. I suspect that many people are offering "open pollinated heirlooms" for trade which if examined carefully are riddled with CMS, especially in carrots, onions, and potatoes. I really like growing my own seed. It makes it possible for me to know each parent as an individual. I'm looking forward to doing the CMS screening/weeding this summer.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 23, 2011 13:14:08 GMT -5
As a followup to a previous post.... I acted on my intent: To eliminate male sterile potatoes from my garden. I cooked up nearly my entire breeding program and made a potato salad. Out of perhaps 50 varieties, only two clones survived. I'm still weeping. In addition to those two clones and their seeds, I have one other packet of seeds from a plant known to be abundantly fruitful. These will form the backbone of my future work with potatoes. I took the rest of the true potato seeds, from about 40 varieties and jumbled them together into a single seed packet... These include seeds that I collected from plants that only had one berry, and seeds from berries that fell off the plant during the growing season, and seeds collected from other growers. It is my intention to direct seed these, only as a screening to see if any of them are abundantly fruitful in the first growing season. If yes, they will become part of my breeding program. If no, they will be eaten. I don't care how brilliant the tubers are, or how high the yield, or how bug resistant. If it doesn't produce an abundance of fruit, for whatever reason, then it won't be allowed to grow a second year in my garden. In future years, I will not collect seed from plants that only produce a few berries. The two clones that are left are abundantly fruitful, producing tens of thousands of seeds per plant. I am excited about this. It means that potatoes have the potential of becoming a weed in my garden. I think that is a great problem to have. It would mean I can do my selection by transplanting volunteers into a row rather than growing transplants in the greenhouse. I am very content with the state of my potato landrace. Here is what the only survivors looked like. Ella's PotatoBountiful Potato
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 6, 2014 13:21:31 GMT -5
The Cytoplasmic Male Sterility controversy gets stranger and stranger... The Organic Seed Growers Conference was held last weekend. The speakers admitted that genetically engineered crops and seeds are widely grown and sold as 'Certified Organic'. Turns out that many of the plants with cytoplasmic-male-sterility which I have been complaining about in this thread originated via genetic engineering: Taking the organelles from one plant and combining them with the nucleus from a different plant. Thus making a transgenic organism by mixing the mitochondrial and the nuclear DNA. Food purists are going to be pissed! I describe the details in this week's blog for Mother Earth News. Next week's blog will be a practical hands on description about how I deal with it in my garden. Genetic Engineering and Cell Fusion CMS2/5/2014 Cell Fusion genetic engineering is emerging as a hot topic in the Certified Organic seed and food industry. We can expect the resolution of this issue to impact both small-scale and large-scale growers.
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Post by billw on Feb 6, 2014 13:37:34 GMT -5
I thought this was one of the reasons for so much of the anti-hybrid sentiment in the organic crowd.
It's really a much more insidious practice than manipulation of the nuclear genome under most circumstances.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 6, 2014 13:43:53 GMT -5
If I remember correctly, a conference attendee provided a figure of something like 94% of organic broccoli being sold for food are derived from cell fusion CMS hybrids. Grocery stores do not typically disclose whether the food they sell is hybrid or not. They don't typically provide cultivar names so that you could do additional research.
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Post by billw on Feb 6, 2014 13:52:44 GMT -5
Anybody who grows broccoli has probably experienced how difficult it is to find a quality OP variety. Hybrid broccolis are significantly better than the few OPs. My broccoli has contributions from just about every OP variety I could find, but still is smaller and slower than the major hybrids. Happily, I don't need it to be the biggest or the fastest, but I am partial to being able to harvest a seed crop.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 6, 2014 14:55:43 GMT -5
I guess I am really bothered by cybrid/cell fusion CMS more than I am with CMS genes that are found within a plant species' own genetic diversity. Particularly because it is being disseminated into the organic seed industry completely unlabeled and unregulated. What is to prevent the developers to later claim it all as proprietary genetic intellectual property like other GMOs. The scariest thing about transgenic organisms are the lawyers.
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Post by trixtrax on Feb 6, 2014 16:48:08 GMT -5
As I understand, cybrid CMS/cell-fusion CMS is banned in the EU for several years now under their organic standard. Anyone in the EU want to clarify on this?
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Post by trixtrax on Feb 6, 2014 16:48:55 GMT -5
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Post by trixtrax on Feb 6, 2014 16:49:27 GMT -5
Almost nobody, even organic growers, are thinking about cell-fusion CMS which is really scary
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 6, 2014 17:18:44 GMT -5
I love Andrew's article. Gotta love it that both of us called into question the validity of the "Safe Seed Pledge". It's getting harder and harder for the signers to claim that they "didn't know" the true nature of the seeds that they are selling.
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Post by trixtrax on Feb 6, 2014 19:17:15 GMT -5
Especially when a lot of seed companies are just resellers or shell company holdings of large agribusiness corps.
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Post by nathanp on Feb 7, 2014 6:56:08 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 7, 2014 9:50:38 GMT -5
There's a research project for someone: Buy a package of Beneforté Broccoli, root it, grow it out, and see if it produces normal flowers. If the flowers lack anthers then I'd speculate that it's a cell fusion cybrid. It's sold at Sam's Club and Whole Foods.
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