Hi Dale, I think that we should make it clear that the plants double fertilization has an important impact. In plants the pollen fertilizes both the egg cell and the endosperm nucleus to produce a triploid. In corn and many other grains the endosperm makes up a major part of the final crop. So unlike the embryo whose _expression_ is delayed to the next planting the endosperm expresses the transgene in the the immediate generation fertilized by 5 plants in each 1000 plants produced. Those 5 transgenic plants may fertilize as many as 100 or more of the individual cobs on plants in their immediate vicinity or for that mater a higher number. This spread of transgenes is independent of selection and effects the corn crop in the generation of the planting. Even more impact may be seen in wheat. The five transgenic corn plants in a thousand can and probably does cause an unacceptable pollution of the harvested crop. However, the bureaucrats can fall back on the "official" notion that regulations of their making cannot allow endosperm to be polluted by transgenes from pollen. The bureaucrats and Dale never seem to worry about such things as double fertilization and nature.. Sincerely, Joe Dale Wilson wrote: Joe and wytze, wytze wrote:if a 0,5% gmo treshold level is set for sowing seed, than how big is the chance that the resulting harvest will consist of more than 0,9% gmo's? Is the assumption correct that a 0,5% gmo content in seeds will remain 0,5% at harvest?Joe wrote:I think that the 5 gm corn seeds per thousand would stay in equilibrium in the absence of selection. However, with selection from, for example,insect pests with Bt corn or roundup from roundup ready corn it would not take long to populate a field with GM corn volunteers.Unless one were trying to select for the transgene, it is unlikely the transgenic fraction would increase in cultivated corn. The reason Bt would not increase (within that generation), is that pollen is generally shed before the plants start to break off from ECB tunneling. Now, if you were saving seed from the crop year after year, you might gradually and inadvertently select for the Bt gene. Dale __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ******************************************************** To unsubscribe from SANET-MG: 1- Visit http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html and unsubscribe by typing in your e-mail address or; 2- Send a message to <listserv@sare.org> from the address subscribed to the list. Type "unsubscribe sanet-mg" in the body of the message. Visit the SANET-MG archives at: http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html &NBSP; ***************************************************** To unsubscribe from SANET-MG: 1- Visit http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html
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