this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Genetically modified? That's a stretch.
Like many other cultures, bananas and apples were selectively reproduced to obtain fruits with more to eat. Corn, carrots, every single kale and cabbage, potatoes, oranges and even strawberries can go into this basket.
The wild banana has almost nothing to eat, being filled with large seeds and we can still find wild apples, by nature very tart but still edible. Every single cereal we plant and harvest today was originally nothing more than a wild grass.
But to call the work of millenia and who knows how many generations of farmers genetic modifications is a bit over the top.
GMOs are very recent introductions and normally for obtaining pest, drought or disease (more) resistant plants.
We absolutely genetically modified pretty much all of our food. We just did it by selective breeding.
The only difference with modern GMO is we've learned to do it directly much faster. We don't need a random mutation to add a trait anymore.
Can we get a geneticist here?
Last time I was taught about biology, selective breeding was a process through which, over a long period of time, individuals with favorable traits were multiplied in order to increase the prevalence of such traits.
The genes were already introduced, hence, no modification. Already existing characteristics were allowed to further express and refine.
Genetic modification, to my understanding, implies introducing genetic information into the genome of an organism to produce another with traits previously completely absent in the species.
Selection vs manipulation.
I'll concede there are a few cases where the lines blurr, like the golden rice, where a gene that codified the production of vitamin A in the grain was/is already inactive or so receassive, in order to have it express again would require gene manipulation but I think a selective production program was put forward in an attempt to bring out that gene again.
Selective breeding is just one of the methods used to genetically modify our food.
I think you two have different images in your minds. You say "genetically modify" as in "modify the food through choosing which genes are to prevail", while the other means "modify genes directly to affect the food", and in that sense selective breeding isn't GMO because no genes have been modified, but rather encouraged. You modify the genetic structure of future generations through natural means, not the organism directly.
Don't know what scientists say, I just see the other comment downvoted when they have a fair point.
I can't agree with that.
The basic notion of genetically modifying an organism implies changes enacted at the genetic level, through artificial means, not biological.
You are correct
https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/www.nal.usda.gov/files/agricultural_biotechnology_gmos_101.pdf
I'm getting an error with the document.
Selective breeding and grafting modified the genetics
Bananas all being clones
There’s no reason to separate the terms
A skyscraper and a toolshed are both buildings technically speaking. So in that sense you are correct, only technically correct.
I would have said a skyscraper made of metal and a skyscraper made of cement are both skyscrapers for your analogy but sure
Let's analyse that.
Selective breeding increases the frequency of a given set of genes, already present in a species, in order to better manifest specific, more advantageous - either nature or human chosen - traits.
Random mutations can occur when biological reproduction happens but unless extreme and radical - which often prove fatal for the offspring - are not relevant for the species in the immediate.
These principles are applicable to both plants and animals.
Now grafting takes a part of one plant - usually a small branch - uses another plant to provide the root system - usually something that grows much faster than the graft - and this process multiplies asexually the plant from which the branch was oroginally cut. No genes are carried over between the two plants.
This is valid to get a bunch of trees out of a single one in a very short time but it will not introduce new genes into the crop.
Quince trees are often used as root stock to graft other trees, like pear and apple. If the seeds from those grafted trees were to be sprouted, planted and nurtured to maturity, apples or pears would grow but of completely new varieties. The quince trees used to provide the root for grafting would provide zero genes to the new varieties.
Can you expand on why you consider grafting as a tool for genetic manipulation?
Under normal circumstances new genes would be, but the new plant isn’t considered a new species (like tigons not being a species)
As in a quince tree cross polinate a pear tree or an apple tree?
Those bastards!!!!
Oh...ok.....
How dare people and companies make plants that help people eat. Most disgusting thing ever.
I cannot help thinking about the first proto-human that started munching on the tips of wild grass.
Our ancestors were primarily leaf eaters, so moving to grass wouldn't be that unusual. But let's picture the first proto-human that decided to go for the carcass of another animal, either killed by a predator or by fire or lightning. That would have been an event.
I'm pretty sure most primates are omnivores so they'd have been hunting as well just more in an opportunistic way
If we are to go back far enough, we are bound to find an ancestor mostly herbivore. On that level, going for the scenario I mentioned would have been some event.