I may be growing my own food for the chickens after all, due to genetic editing

[saysfaa]

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@saysfaa I know you've done your research, I'll be very curious to see what you can home brew for your climate, and how successful the project is over the span of a few years. If I can help...

Thank you. I just came across the GE thing this morning. I haven't even started formulating a plan. Among other things, one of the bigger problems is likely to be how to keep the neighbor's crops from pollinating mine to keep mine nonGMO/nonGE.

At least, I do remember a little bit about how my parents and grandparents saved seeds before switching to hybrids.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

That is really the point of starting this thread. That will become much harder to do if the definition of Genetically Modified Organisms is changed to mean only certain kinds of modifications are included.

I can see why people would want to differentiate between "we crossed a broccoli with a spinach in the lab" and "we crossed a zucchini with a jellyfish and a goat in the lab". But neither peice of information answers any questions, it only helps determine the next line of questioning - what gene or gene fragment were you trying to introducce, into which species. What protein does it encode?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you. I just came across the GE thing this morning. I haven't even started formulating a plan. Among other things, one of the bigger problems is likely to be how to keep the neighbor's crops from pollinating mine to keep mine nonGMO/nonGE.

At least, I do remember a little bit about how my parents and grandparents saved seeds before switching to hybrids.

SPACE. Lots of space. Or lots of greenhouses. A physical barrier, or an insurmountable distance are the only way to keep pollinators seperated. and of course greenhouses have their own problems to overcome - particularly if the plant relies on an insect pollinator for reproduction.

 

[saysfaa]

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To the mention of Ireland and the potato famine, we are actually working on a blight resistant potato - https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26189722

So to your argument, I would agree that lack of genetic diversity is a problem, but I don't believe that GMOs are the cause, nor to I believe that non-GMOs are the fix. My solution for this would actually be doubling down on GMOs, but just a greater variety of them.

Or we could incorporate a more of the (used to be at least) hundreds or thousands of potato varieties the aztecs (or was it Incas) grew. That is how the natives of the Andes region survive a harsh and variable climate - never did all of them grow well in the same season but some always did. It is encouraging to see more of the red and blue fleshed potatoes in my local grocery store.

But, yes, I agree non-GMOs are not the cause or the fix of that problem. The parallel is more that not many people saw the vulnerability of using just one or a very few varieties.

A possible solution is a large enough seed bank of non-GMO/GE seed stored away or regrown somewhere isolated enough, if there is such a place.

 

[samanthaoverton]

The thing with gmo is the fact that when you save seeds from that plant you won't get the same plant. You won't get consistent results. Gmo veggies are like cornish cross chickens. And then changing course here, there are huge businesses that own these seeds and rights to them. The equivalent to copyright. God forbid a poor farmer selling his soybeans accidentally have Monsanto's start growing in his field. Farms that sell soy beans aren't legally allowed to save seeds. Every year they have to buy new. Heirlooms need to be preserved. Back in the 1940s tomatoes were categorized as high acid in canning books but now I can crack open a canning book and they are categorized as low acid. If you haven't seen it, watch Food inc. Any animal or food that is good should be able to reproduce naturally.

 

[Battlepants]

Or we could incorporate a more of the (used to be at least) hundreds or thousands of potato varieties the aztecs (or was it Incas) grew. That is how the natives of the Andes region survive a harsh and variable climate - never did all of them grow well in the same season but some always did. It is encouraging to see more of the red and blue fleshed potatoes in my local grocery store.

The problem of yield and disease resistance comes up with these. Fine to grow on a small scale for personal use, but this is not sustainable for widespread industrial farming with the current demand for food.

A possible solution is a large enough seed bank of non-GMO/GE seed stored away or regrown somewhere isolated enough, if there is such a place.

This does exist - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault

So, if all else fails, we could (in theory) thaw out some older seeds and replant.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

There are multiple, HUGE seed banks. Svalbard is the best known.

Yields on those heirloom crops won't support anything like current populations.

and restrictions on saving seed are contractual only. Its not US Law, its an agreement between the farmer and the seed provider. Has nothing to do with whether or no the next gen carries the modifications - in fact, if it didn't, there would be no reason for companies like Monsanto to contract away the farmer's ability to keep seed stock for the next year. These plants are not RSL chickens.

Now, the anti-GMO crowd has in some cases encouraged the States to craft legislation in an effort to keep GMO from spreading "on the wind" as it were, which further benefits companies like Monsanto while simultaneously catering to "Green" voters, but those are civil, not criminal, infractions.

 

[saysfaa]

SPACE. Lots of space. Or lots of greenhouses. A physical barrier, or an insurmountable distance are the only way to keep pollinators seperated. and of course greenhouses have their own problems to overcome - particularly if the plant relies on an insect pollinator for reproduction.

Be warned - this post is a lot of stream of conscious here...Hm, I have enough space for corn, I think. Unfortunately, the neighbor windward of me grows corn. Or I could bag the ears... harder than bagging the tassels but I doubt the neighbor would appreciate me bagging the tassels of his corn and I don't have time to bag that many acres of corn. Well, learn something everyday - it is possible to bag small grains also... researchers did it to measure pollen production. Not the least bit practical, I'm sure, even for just 5 hens, not even counting what we would eat directly, if I wanted to be consistent in doing this.

Buckwheat grows well here and is insect pollinated.

But does this matter? As long as none of the neighbors have modified crops that can cross pollinate with what I'm growing - it shouldn't. Corn, Alfalfa, and squash are on the list of GMO foods grown in the US; not the rest of crops that might work for this purpose in my climate. Edit to add potatoes are also but pollination isn't a problem with them.

Sweet corn needs to be planted more than 250' from field corn or pop corn for it to reliably have sweet corn characteristics but this https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-014-0024-3 says, "...Maize pollen deposition was negatively correlated with distance from the nearest pollen source. The highest pollen deposition was within the field, but depositions of several thousand pollen grains per square meter were recorded over the kilometer range...."

They said wind direction and terrain matter. They didn't say how big their original fields were. It makes sense that a small field of corn (likely in Europe? maybe? at least compared to me here in the midwest) would disperse a lot fewer grains of pollen per square meter than the multiple 40 acre fields upwind of me will.

Alfalfa and squash are bee pollinated. Honey bees forage an average of 1 to 2 miles. Between the squash fields, the bean fields, and the orchards, there are a LOT of apiaries within a couple of miles. Maybe with so much bee pasture, they would forage on the lower end of that range of distance? Maybe. Squash wouldn't matter as much since it is pretty deliberately planted each year - I could bag the female flowers and hand pollinate them to get enough seed for the next year. Alfalfa would be much bigger problem - it is far too expensive to plant such a perennial as if it were an annual and it reseeds itself at least partially. I could probably find all the alfalfa fields within a couple of miles and ask if they are gmo varieties... advantages of knowing the neighbors.

I mind less that gmo is being done somewhere as I mind that it is so hard to avoid that being the only option.

 

[saysfaa]

There are multiple, HUGE seed banks. Svalbard is the best known.

The problem of yield and disease resistance comes up with these. Fine to grow on a small scale for personal use, but this is not sustainable for widespread industrial farming with the current demand for food.


This does exist - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault

So, if all else fails, we could (in theory) thaw out some older seeds and replant.

That is encouraging. And Svalbard is huge - and still stores an average of 500 seeds per sample. I got the impression it is generally a sample per variety for the most part, although I don't see that specified. It would take a LONG time to build up production from that few even they aren't low production heritage varieties.

 

[saysfaa]

Be warned - this post is a lot of stream of conscious here...Hm, I have enough space for corn, I think. Unfortunately, the neighbor windward of me grows corn. Or I could bag the ears... harder than bagging the tassels but I doubt the neighbor would appreciate me bagging the tassels of his corn and I don't have time to bag that many acres of corn. Well, learn something everyday - it is possible to bag small grains also... researchers did it to measure pollen production. Not the least bit practical, I'm sure, even for just 5 hens, not even counting what we would eat directly, if I wanted to be consistent in doing this.

...Corn, Alfalfa, and squash are on the list of GMO foods grown in the US; not the rest of crops that might work for this purpose in my climate. Edit to add potatoes are also but pollination isn't a problem with them.
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that was the USDA list
https://www.isaaa.org/gmapprovaldatabase/cropslist/default.asp has a much longer list.

hm, squash has several on the list but none are commercially available. yet, anyway.