NOTE: The subject line of a recent bulletin from AgBioWorld, featuring the article below, proclaimed "GM Potato Shines in GM Watch Backyard" - a reference to GMWatch's founder living in Norfolk, where a GM potato trial is taking place.
http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=3008
But the celebrations over the trial not only seem somewhat premature, but entirely miss the point. As one of those commenting on the article notes, "The pioneering work at the Savari Trust in North Wales [using conventional potato breeding] is miles ahead of GM technology in producing very good late blight resistance in varieties that are already on the market. This has been achieved without the benefit of the massive public research funding that has been poured into GM blight resistance research. We should be investing more into these already existing solutions to get the blight resistance into even more varieties of potato without having to go down the GM route that the public has no appetite for."
http://bit.ly/dri18g (2nd comment)
And even the trial's leader Prof Jonathan Jones seems somewhat sheepish about the latest round of publicity he's triggered, admitting "we have not done any proper analysis of the data... We have got quite a bit of analysis to do."
It was Prof Jones who during the Pusztai crisis in February 1999 penned an article at the request of Tony Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, on the benefits of GM crops which was then hawked around the press by Number 10. In the article, Jones wrote, "Grandstanding does not resolve scientific questions."
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Jonathan_Jones
More recently, Prof Jones gained notoriety over his failure to be upfront about his having founded a company, on whose advisory board he sits, that has the Monsanto Corporation as its principal customer.
http://bit.ly/c22AsG
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Norfolk GM potato trial withstands blight
MICHAEL POLLITT, AGRICULTURAL EDITOR
Eastern Daily Press, 26 August 2010
http://bit.ly/dri18g
A trial plot of genetically-modified potatoes at Norfolk's John Innes Centre has withstood five days of intense late-blight infection.
Scientists spotted blight last week on the small trial plots of potatoes at Colney, which include GM resistance genes taken from wild relatives.
The initial results, after less than a week of late blight, appear to indicate that one plot of Desiree with a GM resistance gene, has stood up to the disease pressure.
However, scientist Prof Jonathan Jones, who has been leading the three-year trial involving 192 GM potato plants, stressed that it was far too early to jump to conclusions.
"I'm pretty happy with the indications but I'm also cautious because we have not done any proper analysis of the data. First impressions appear to show that one of the two genes tested has conferred a degree of protection on the plants."
"We'll be looking into the reasons why. We have got quite a bit of analysis to do," said Prof Jones, group leader at the JIC's Sainsbury Laboratory.
He said that the trial, which was given official clearance by Defra, was to assess the resistance of GM potato lines to naturally-occurring strains of late blight.
The scientists planted the eight-inch high Desiree potatoes in six blocks, each of four rows of eight in an area about the size of two pool tables. Other conventional potatoes, Maris Piper, were planted as a control alongside the plots.
Prof Jones said that impact of the disease was “visually obvious” on the ordinary potato varieties.
He said that all the potatoes from the trial plots, which had been planted inside a three-metre high metal fence costing about GBP20,000 to protect them from opponents of GM crops, would not enter the food chain. "Our licence stipulates that all the potatoes must be destroyed," he added.
The initial results indicated that one of the GM trial plots, MCQ1, had not withstood the disease pressure. "But the other, VNT1, which confers resistance to the widespread and destructive new “superblight” Blue 13 strain in the laboratory, looks fine," said Prof Jones.
All the potatoes, which were planted outside in the first week of June, had been grown in a greenhouse until the official permission for the trial had been given.
Scientists screened wild potato relatives to look for natural resistance, which was identified. Two different resistance genes were then cloned and introduced into potato variety Desiree for the three-year trial.
The public-funded trial programme aims to assess effectiveness against last blight, which costs farmers an estimated GBP3.5bn worldwide each year.