Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I find the topic a little bit weird to say the least, as soon as anyone say's GM there is an immediate uproar from folk....fair enough, we don't want our food being tampered with by anyone except god/nature/whomever the right entity is?

Next time your bored try searching Rapeseed (you should find canola) now do you honestly think canola just mutated from rapeseed without help? and why won't canola ever preform the same (as in growth rates and pod amount) from seed saved after harvest?

"So apparently rapeseed typically contains high levels of erucic acid (which makes oils go rancid quickly, is toxic in large doses, and may cause cancer) and glucosinolate (which tastes so bitter and unpleasant that it’s undesirable even in animal feed).
In the 1950s and 1960s, Canadian scientists began developing strains of it with lower levels of the problematic chemicals. In 1974, a University of Manitoba professor named Baldur Steffanson introduced a rapeseed variety with extremely low erucic acid and glucosinolate content that was dubbed canola, for CANadian Oil, Low Acid.

So thanks to the name (in Europe the oil is still called rapeseed oil, or even—rape oil), canola growers have spoken carefully when describing their product. “Canola is genetically totally different from rapeseed”

So my point...if there is one ...is, if you are eating anything that involves canola you are eating GM food, if you eat bread, then chances are the wheat has been "modified" to...we aren't going to get away from it, most don't like it BUT unless you grow stuff yourself you really don't know what you are eating.......rant over

The fact that it was done in 1974... suggests the strain might have been developed by selective breeding... rather than direct genetic modification...

The difference is a selective "natural" genetic variation... rather than a deliberate human initiated modification...

Good point Rupe.......on a side note however Last year was the first where "announced" GM canola was sold openly to farmers, and a lot was sold.

I was a canola plant pathologist in a previous life.

GM in the canola arena refers to those plants where a gene from another plant (including other canola plants) has been artificially inserted into the DNA of a cell using a virus, gun etc...

Non GM - refers to those that were bred through natural selection but also includes those plants where chemicals/radiation etc was added in liberal doses to bring about mutation. Almost all new canola lines pass through callous culture techniques in the pre-breeding programs. There are also tolerance level now set for Non GM (set at around 1% from the last Grains Research Development Corporation update (2010) I went to) but this was done after I left crop production and I would need to look into it further to work out what industry/seed production companies mean by 1%. This in effect means that something can have a tiny bit of contaminant GM (cross polination cannot be helped) and still be called Non-GM

Canola with a little bit of GM has been cultivated for about 10 yrs now in Australia - At least one canola line I am aware of has had GM contamination (much to the horror of the company selling it) - but it's breeding lines were not GM suggesting accidental contamination.

Personally I think the biggest problem from creating GM is their weed potential as a lot of the changes are being done so that different herbicide chemical groups can be used "in crop" to kill weeds.

I'd eat that trout just to gain it's super powers! hehe

I saw this program on TV about a kid with a myostatin <sp> mutation. At two years old he had huge muscles and six pack abs. He was already performing physical abilities usually seen in 6 year olds. They did some studies on him to make sure he didn't have any health concerns problems. He doesn't store much body fat so must eat frequently. A body scan showed he had 60% more muscle mass than an average kid.

The other parents at his school were already talking about banning him from any sports competitions. Kind of messed up. We all have genetic mutations. Some make us better musicians, scientists, and athletes. Look at Michael Phelps hands, they look like flippers.

Producing a fish with a myostatin mutation is NOTHING like what Monsanto is doing putting pesticides into corn. This type of fish could help alleviate hunger. A fish like this could be produced naturally without genetic modification. It would just take a really long time. That kid is the only kid in the world out of 6 billion people, a rarity. Humans have been genetically engineering plants and animals for 20k-40k years, it's called breeding. Look, not all genetic engineering is bad. It can be, but doesn't have to be.

On a lighter note, that fish is pretty ugly. Not as ugly as the australian catfish though.

No wonder it's such an ugly trout. It's a salmon.



I totally agree. Many of the fruits and vegetables we eat wouldn't be worth growing if we hadn't genetically modified them over 1000s of years to what they are now.

Myostatin is there for a reason. If it wasn't, natural selection would have given preference to those mutations that don't have it and they'd be prevalent.

Genetic modification (cross-breeding, etc) is still natural - we create the possibility and let nature decide if it's going to work or not.

Genetic engineering is a different matter altogether - we don't understand anything like enough to really appreciate what the consequences are. To be creating things that could not occur in the wild and then putting them out into the world, is a recipe for disaster !

Ain't that the truth CD....

Nature didn't give preference to a myostatin genetic mutation because people or animals with that defect are not likely to survive during periods of shortened food supply. That doesn't mean we couldn't use it for our benefit in farming applications.

Genetic modification (cross breeding) is not natural at all. Nature would never select for the traits that people have. I love my chihuahua but I am under no illusion that it is natural or could survive if I weren't in the picture.

I do agree with you that we don't understand genetics fully and must be careful with it. Genetic engineering doesn't need to be like The Island of Dr. Moreau. In fact it's those kinds of scenes from movies and tv that has scared the general population away from genetic engineering. I think we really need to quantify what genetic engineering is good and what is bad.

Example of a bad idea: Engineering corn to produce it's own pesticides. I didn't want those pesticides ON my food before, I don't want them IN my food now.

Example of a good idea: Engineering corn plants to produce 50% more corn.

Example of a bad idea: Engineering a virus as a bio weapon to decimate our enemies. I don't think I need to explain why that is not a good idea.

Example of a good idea: Engineering a virus that will target and destroy cancer cells. The virus could be engineered to have a limited life span and die out soon after completing it's mission.

Sorry for the double post, could not edit.

A more applicable example of good idea for corn: Retro-Engineering corn plants to have the disease resistance closer to that of the original plant, before humans began inbreeding and crossbreeding, while still maintaining it's current delicious taste.

Agree with you overall TN !

Your chihuahua might surprise you if it got together with a few others in the wild. Certainly domesticated dogs and cats gone feral can give plenty of examples of returning to fully wild state and surviving. But point taken.


Weeeelllll, that's kinda my point. Yes, that outcome is a good thing in those 2 "good" examples, but what I'm saying when I say we don't understand enough about it is; we don't know enough about it to be able to definitely say that those will be the only outcomes !

Whatever gene is turned off or added to that corn to make it produce 50% more may not effect you in any visible way, but any children you have may be born without arms (for example). And it may take 20 years of consumption for that link to be proven statistically. And in that time, that corn may have contaminated most corn growing areas around the world. All of a sudden we have a problem that is logistically impossible to get rid of (think cane toads).

Let's just take what we do understand about GE foods. It drives native species to extinction and causes widespread monocultures of a single crop to be planted. Without regional genetic diversity in the picture our entire culture become more and more dependent upon these monocultures and in the end the chances of disease or pest wiping out entire crops raises to not only predictable, but almost certain levels. The Irish potato famine is a good example of a monoculture being infected and killing millions of people through starvation. It is a bad idea...I wish they would cut it out!

Not going to happen mate unless there is some serious protesting and pressure put on Governments and Manufacturers.

I know of 10 tonne of GM seed pre-sold in my area and thats just from 1 of 3 stores, the ammount of GM sold is only rising and so to the tension between GM and Non-GM growers.

We physically removed a dude from the store last year after he was abusing the front desk clerk about the issue

And so they should protest..... Because before they know it, they will have cross pollinated plants, then Monsanto will try to sue them.... All because they just happened to live next to someone who planted a GM crop.

Cross pollinating is even worse then the legal aspects as it can "infect" the native regional species and leave them sterile - further decimating the regional varience. Screw Monsanto...we should be sueing them.