From lonrom@hevanet.com Sun Aug 1 01:24:11 1999 Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 21:34:27 -0700 From: Lon J. Rombough To: SANET , AGRISYNERGY Subject: FW: Lem. Ger. to clean toxic soils Forwarded for the interest of the list members. ---------- From: Amy To: OGL@LSV.UKY.EDU Subject: Lem. Ger. to clean toxic soils Date: Sat, Jul 31, 1999, 8:52 PM This from Richters HerbLetter By Carolyn Abraham TORONTO, July 16, [Toronto] Globe and Mail -- Researchers at the University of Guelph have applied for an international patent on lemon-scented geraniums, believing they are pollution-eating plants that could clean the environment and restore a toxic land patch to Garden of Eden. Their research has found that the familiar flowering plant has an uncanny ability to absorb metal and organic pollutants which could help to detoxify everything from abandoned gas station sites to old mining lands. They may also be of particular benefit to developing countries whose crop yields suffer because of naturally occurring high metal content in their soils. Plant biologist Praveen Saxena and his team are now hurrying to find the genes that endow the lemon-scented geranium with its rare ability to absorb pollutants so they might, through genetic engineering, enhance those traits. And although they have not yet discovered those genes, they have requested in the patent application field last year that their claim include any genetically modified form of the lemon-scented geranium that would be used to detoxify the environment. Patents have been issued on other plants, Dr. Saxena said. But the issue of laying an ownership claim over a natural life form remains a controversal area of biotechnology. This is partly because critics argue that patents often make new agricultural technology unaffordable to farmers who could benefit from it. Stephanie De Grandis, associate director of Guelph's business development office, explained that the patent would not be on the plant, but on the process of using the plant for cleaning up contaminated soil, called phytoremediation. "Anyone who went out to use these geraniums for phytoremediation would have to come and talk to us [if the patent is granted]," Dr. De Grandis said, adding that anyone who didn't could face legal action. After planting the scented geraniums in contaminated soil samples from an undisclosed site in Canada and conducting a similar trial at a contaminated Hamilton location, the researchers found that the plants cleaned up toxic soil and flourished in it. "With other methods to get rid of toxic metals in the soil, the soil is left clean, but it's useless," Dr. Saxena said. But by planting lemon-scented geraniums to clean the soil, the same land could later be used for farming, he added. To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail