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Post by steev on Mar 23, 2017 1:26:36 GMT -5
I prefer the "burn yourself (or explode) alive on your enemy" argument; it's the personal commitment that makes the action meaningful.
We'd all love to be able to protest things and have our complaints heard and taken seriously, but really, do you really think any (multi-national) corporation gives a husky fuck about protests? How much do you read about protests in the lame-stream media? Not so much, if I am not wrong; the "media" are largely owned by the corporations, so they have no reason to counter their interests, nor do they care about yours; you are a commodity; soylent green, if it comes to that.
The whole "this is all about how I profit from my efforts" argument is about denying millennia of effort by (largely) unknown forebears, who gave their efforts to the benefit of us all, not for profit, but to feed their families and communities.
The whole "globalization" thing requires us to expand our notion of community globally.
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Post by steev on Mar 23, 2017 2:27:39 GMT -5
It occurs to me that many, perhaps largely some of the younger persuasion, may need to research not only horticultural, but the social/cultural, provenance of the crops and attitudes they've inherited; it's nice to move on from "now", but "now" didn't spring from "divine creation" today, nor from yesterday, nor last year, last century, or last millennium.
Some of us may see ways to profit greatly, even at the expense of most of us, but I find it hard to accept that the bulk of us are willing to be exploited interminably.
I think our horticultural discoveries are best used when spread among ourselves; I realize that some of us may need/want personal profit from what they do; not my concern.
Personally, I regard anything we develop from re-combining our cousins as expressions of our Great Mother, and thus not our property, but manifestations of Her potential richness, given freely to us all, Her children, if we can only work/play with what She has so richly endowed us.
I realize my attitudes/opinions may be controversial to some; I invite any who think so to come explain why they think me wrong; I'm not opposed to being proven wrong, if it is so, but I think the debate is needed, as I think much of the currently-accepted opinion is promulgated by "lame-stream" big-ag corporate interests.
Fuck 'em; if I may be so bold and Anglo-Saxon.
I would note that I'm more of a Celt, actually, sommat Scottish, never mind.
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Post by MikeH on Mar 23, 2017 4:21:50 GMT -5
From a business perspective sometimes patents are good. Good or bad we also are now somewhat transitioning into an extended era of open source. The consequences of this new market dynamic means that patents are old news. For some companies, being closed source and proprietary means that they wont have an edge and will actually go out of business or have trouble competing, and for others despite being open source and some peoples fears of them being ripped off and copied they will still do extremely well despite it. So how does open source work in the case of Honeycrisp apple? I'm not head butting here but I can't figure that one out when you have to mass plant as many as 50,000 seeds to get a Honeycrisp and the timeframe is at least 15 years. Having said that the current method of producing new commercial varieties has inbreeding problems: I suppose it's possible that one could use marker-assisted selection and genomic selection to choose parents to avoid inbreeding while still having a good probability of producing a viable commercial apple. Given the relatively deep expertise and financial pockets of a University of Minnesota, they are probably doing just that. |
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Post by MikeH on Mar 23, 2017 4:30:56 GMT -5
It just occurred to me that this graphic might help the conversation re: open source and apples.  |
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Post by philagardener on Mar 23, 2017 6:00:37 GMT -5
Having said that the current method of producing new commercial varieties has inbreeding problems: I suppose it's possible that one could use marker-assisted selection and genomic selection to choose parents to avoid inbreeding while still having a good probability of producing a viable commercial apple. Given the relatively deep expertise and financial pockets of a University of Minnesota, they are probably doing just that. As I understand it, most standard apple varieties are highly diverse genetically. When you self a variety like Red Delicious you get a wide spectrum of phenotypes, few combinations of which are favorable. Each is a rich genetic grab bag but odds are long for getting new combinations that work well together - hence the need to screen tens of thousands of offspring. That suggests that inbreeding, even back crossing, may not be a huge issue at this point in the genetic management of that crop. While it will happen to some degree (and it good to think about), poor genetic combinations will be discarded in that deep screening. The "Johnny Appleseed" approach - plant lots in many places, and let folks find the best and pass them along - was just an early version of crowdsourced plant breeding! |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 23, 2017 9:35:32 GMT -5
not sure. My stance on it all right now is akin to "what would be ideal or utopia" vs. "what is actually practical and the happy/sad truth that money makes the world go round". The best we could probably do is find a middle ground somewhere.
I'm not opposed to universities doing research and i understand it takes lots of money to do large projects like that, but at the same time it bugs me that they then patent everything up the wazoo.
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Post by MikeH on Mar 23, 2017 11:07:24 GMT -5
not sure. My stance on it all right now is akin to "what would be ideal or utopia" vs. "what is actually practical and the happy/sad truth that money makes the world go round". The best we could probably do is find a middle ground somewhere. I'm not opposed to universities doing research and i understand it takes lots of money to do large projects like that, but at the same time it bugs me that they then patent everything up the wazoo. Yep, the devil is in the details. The open source approach probably works, I think, for plants with a short seed to harvest cycle. These would mostly be annuals. In greenhouse conditions, you could theoretically get 3 seasons in one for a tomato. IIRC, Ray's Australian Mist was stabilized quickly that way. I'm not sure if the same would apply to Telsing's cold-hardy perennial kale because of the cold hardy factor. A big problem for the open source approach is increasing control of cross-border movement of plant genetic material. Seeds are OK except but there are exceptions, eg., Australia and New Zealand. I can get seeds from the USDA genebank but scion wood will be seized by Canadian authorities at the border if it does not have a phytosanitary certificate. Canada moved from a blacklist approach to a whitelist approach about 6 years ago. I suspect that other countries did the same around the same time. The whitelist approach says that if it's not on the list, you can't bring it in. To get a plant put on the whitelist is expensive - I've heard the number $40,000 tossed around but I have no idea whether that came out of someone's hat or not. It's a fairly safe assumption that jumping through government regulator hoops will be slow and expensive. Canadian seed companies stopped shipping to the US a few years back but some seem to have started again so it seems that the US might have been blocking seeds/making it difficult or confusing from at least Canada. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Mar 23, 2017 11:11:14 GMT -5
I prefer the "burn yourself (or explode) alive on your enemy" argument; it's the personal commitment that makes the action meaningful. We'd all love to be able to protest things and have our complaints heard and taken seriously, but really, do you really think any (multi-national) corporation gives a husky fuck about protests? How much do you read about protests in the lame-stream media? Not so much, if I am not wrong; the "media" are largely owned by the corporations, so they have no reason to counter their interests, nor do they care about yours; you are a commodity; soylent green, if it comes to that. The whole "this is all about how I profit from my efforts" argument is about denying millennia of effort by (largely) unknown forebears, who gave their efforts to the benefit of us all, not for profit, but to feed their families and communities. The whole "globalization" thing requires us to expand our notion of community globally. And that is sort of the point, to be truly selfless is to no longer care about what you get out of what you do even in terms of "I do what I can for others in the hope they are doing what they can for me" it's more like "No matter how much others take and how little they give, if they give anything, I have an obligation to give EVERYTHING without reserve to them. If I have to sacrifice my life and the lives of my children community and so on in the hope that by doing so I can help others, even theoretical other not yet born, I am obligated to do it. Better I starve than anyone else not be able to eat all they might want." And that goes against all of human natural thought. We mat hold up the Russian Scientists in WWII who starved to death rather than let the seed collections of the Vavilov institute be consumed, but if anyone suggested that is how ALL people should behave ALL the time, it would be at best laughed out as ludicrous (and probably wind up with you being committed for being dangerously mentally ill/suicidal if you actually believed it. |
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Post by walt on Mar 23, 2017 16:00:04 GMT -5
I think the CRISPR technology will change the game for GMOs.
I'm working on hardy citrus. After reading up on CRISPR, I realized that probably before I succeed, someone will have combined the genetic systems that together provide winter hardiness in citrus relatives with the genetic systems that together provide good fruit qualities in citrus.
This is a far cry from the current GMO approach of adding a gene that will change the world.
So I may be wasting my time. Or maybe I'm wasting my time no matter how successful CRISPR becomes. My doctor thinks I have several years to wander around this Earth. I might as well spend it gardening and breeding plants.
I spent 3 years in Niger, breeding tomatoes, onions, okra, and onions. So in the next famine, they will have plenty of vitamins while they starve for lack of proteins and calories. Given the system they had then, higher yielding varieties could be bred and bags loaded on camels. A bag could be left off at villages and people could try them on a small scale while growing their old varieties for security until they knew how the new ones did for them. And while they were comparing the old and new, the old and new were crossing some, leading to new land races. A really good system.
But there have been 6 coups, that I know of, since then. I'm sure things have changed. I doubt they changed for the better.
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Post by blueadzuki on Mar 23, 2017 16:27:38 GMT -5
I kind of agree. While at the moment we are pretty limited to taking a big piece of DNA and adding and swapping a lot of little pieces into it. I think we are not too far off from the point were, using the genes of an existing lifeform as a sort of guide, we put together chromosomes out of the individual nucleotides like building blocks, creating complete synthetic chromosomes. And of course after that there is the point where we don't even need the blueprint anymore, where we understand gene interaction well enough we can string nucleotides together like beads on a string and make chormosomes (and lifeforms) that have NO relation to anything created by nature (life literally outside of the evolutionary tree.)
I suppose that means also that, however important saving biodiversity is now, eventually it will be unnecessary. We'll be able to model any sequence of DNA in virtual reality and work out every conceivable genetic permutation and its effects. At that point, natural seed becomes almost pointless; when you need something you go to the program, tell it what you want, it works out what DNA sequence will accomplish that, then print the result, either as is or as a replacement nuclei for a donor cell (depending on whether we ever work out the genetic trick of making live from non-living matter.)
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Post by philagardener on Mar 23, 2017 18:30:11 GMT -5
Given the system they had then, higher yielding varieties could be bred and bags loaded on camels. A bag could be left off at villages and people could try them on a small scale while growing their old varieties for security until they knew how the new ones did for them. And while they were comparing the old and new, the old and new were crossing some, leading to new land races. A really good system. But there have been 6 coups, that I know of, since then. I'm sure things have changed. I doubt they changed for the better. Now, big Ag companies come in and say don't grow those old varieties, grow our new varieties - that's Progress! And when the people have to buy hybrid seed each year, and chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, that drives them further into poverty and hunger. The best coups are for chickens . . . |
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Post by castanea on Mar 25, 2017 12:19:45 GMT -5
From a business perspective sometimes patents are good. Good or bad we also are now somewhat transitioning into an extended era of open source. The consequences of this new market dynamic means that patents are old news. For some companies, being closed source and proprietary means that they wont have an edge and will actually go out of business or have trouble competing, and for others despite being open source and some peoples fears of them being ripped off and copied they will still do extremely well despite it. So how does open source work in the case of Honeycrisp apple? I'm not head butting here but I can't figure that one out when you have to mass plant as many as 50,000 seeds to get a Honeycrisp and the timeframe is at least 15 years. Having said that the current method of producing new commercial varieties has inbreeding problems: I suppose it's possible that one could use marker-assisted selection and genomic selection to choose parents to avoid inbreeding while still having a good probability of producing a viable commercial apple. Given the relatively deep expertise and financial pockets of a University of Minnesota, they are probably doing just that. What serious apple breeders have found out in the last 20 years is that seedlings of Honeycrisp and seedlings of Fuji, and particularly seedlings of Honeycrisp/Fuji crosses, produce a high percentage of trees with superb apples, with some apples being better than either Honeycrisp or Fuji. Of course the standards they use to evaluate these apples are not my standards, but nonetheless they are producing some trees with very decent apples. For the rest of us, there may be benefit in choosing varieties with qualities we like and crossing them with Fuji or Honeycrisp. |
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Post by walt on Mar 25, 2017 13:29:35 GMT -5
I kind of agree. While at the moment we are pretty limited to taking a big piece of DNA and adding and swapping a lot of little pieces into it. I think we are not too far off from the point were, using the genes of an existing lifeform as a sort of guide, we put together chromosomes out of the individual nucleotides like building blocks, creating complete synthetic chromosomes. And of course after that there is the point where we don't even need the blueprint anymore, where we understand gene interaction well enough we can string nucleotides together like beads on a string and make chormosomes (and lifeforms) that have NO relation to anything created by nature (life literally outside of the evolutionary tree.) I suppose that means also that, however important saving biodiversity is now, eventually it will be unnecessary. We'll be able to model any sequence of DNA in virtual reality and work out every conceivable genetic permutation and its effects. At that point, natural seed becomes almost pointless; when you need something you go to the program, tell it what you want, it works out what DNA sequence will accomplish that, then print the result, either as is or as a replacement nuclei for a donor cell (depending on whether we ever work out the genetic trick of making live from non-living matter.) I think that will happen. Maybe a good thing for those who get their food at the store, but not for gardeners, including subsistance farmers. I like to go from plant to plant (strawberry or plum or apricots especially) tasting each, deciding which should be bred further from. Or plant to plant looking at iris seedlings, maypops, etc. Much of my joy in life would be lost with the technology above. |
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Post by walt on Mar 25, 2017 13:42:40 GMT -5
Given the system they had then, higher yielding varieties could be bred and bags loaded on camels. A bag could be left off at villages and people could try them on a small scale while growing their old varieties for security until they knew how the new ones did for them. And while they were comparing the old and new, the old and new were crossing some, leading to new land races. A really good system. But there have been 6 coups, that I know of, since then. I'm sure things have changed. I doubt they changed for the better. Now, big Ag companies come in and say don't grow those old varieties, grow our new varieties - that's Progress! And when the people have to buy hybrid seed each year, and chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, that drives them further into poverty and hunger. The best coups are for chickens . . . Given that the law in 1982 when I left, hybrids were illeagal, potash was being dug out of the hills by the farmers themselves for their own use, legume rotation and intercropping was traditional and research was being done to improve methods and those improvements were being taught over radio, I don't think the above will happen there. Don't know, and don't know how to find out. News reports seldom cover such things. And I lost all respect for international news while there. Rerporters seldom go there. When they do, they look around for someone who speaks English or French and report whatever that person says as gospel. I don't even take the gospel as gospel. |
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Post by steev on Mar 28, 2017 0:07:15 GMT -5
What I want to know is why GM companies aren't producing something really likely to improve the human condition, like belted cats or dogs.
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