Gene Flow between Crops and Their Wild Relatives Review

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Gene Flow between Crops and Their Wild Relatives ReviewFor anyone interested in understanding the risks involved with the genetic engineering of crops this book will serve as a good introduction to the subject and the research literature. Although the book presupposes an advanced knowledge of genetics and botany, it can be approach by those, such as this reviewer, who do not have such a background but are willing to consult monographs and textbooks on botany as they are being confronted with the terminology used in the book (a very helpful glossary is included at the end of the book). Studying this book may thus be time-consuming for such readers, but it is worth the effort for anyone who is serious about understanding the possibility of deleterious effects of the genetic modification of crops. The press has spread much hype regarding these types of risks, and so an in-depth study of their claims is necessary. In addition, it is necessary to understand to what extent scientific research needs to increase to fill the gaps in the understanding of the risks and benefits of genetic engineering.
As the title implies of course, the authors' emphasis is on the likelihood that foodstuff crops, genetically engineered to be resilient to lack of water, heat, or pesticides can indeed exchange their genes with their "wild relatives", namely those plants that of the same species but are not the focus of human cultivation. There are introduction and methodology chapters to the book that are excellent and detail how the book is organized and the strategy that the authors will use to classify the risks, along with the existing research gaps. Twenty crop species are examined: plantains and bananas, barley, canola/oilseed rape, cassava/yuca/manioc, chickpeas, common beans, cotton, cowpeas, finger millet, maize/corn, oats, peanuts, pearl millet, pigeonpeas, potatoes, rice, sorghum, soybeans, sweetpotatoes/batata/camote, wheat/bread wheat. The authors give a qualitative classification of the likelihood of gene flow and introgression between crops and their 'crop wild relatives' (CWR): Very high, high, moderate, low, and very low. Of the twenty species studied the authors classified two as 'very high": between canola and cultivated and wild field mustard and between sorghum and its annual and perennial wild weedy relatives shattercane and Johnson grass.
While studying the book, one will no doubt be amazed about how easy it is for humans to unintentionally scatter seeds, as well as how difficult it is for plants to exchange genes, even if they are genetically "close". At the same time it is easy to feel some sense of foreboding when thinking about how a particular weed, such as the pesky "Johnson grass" (a CWR of sorghum) might proliferate to such a degree as to actually become a serious danger when taking on (pesticide-resistant) genes from its crop relative. The discussion on rice is particularly interesting, even more so because of the reports from the press on "golden rice", many of these being quite extreme and lacking scientific support.Gene Flow between Crops and Their Wild Relatives Overview

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