For the First Time, Genetically Modified Trees Have Been Planted in a US Forest (nytimes.com) 79
Genetically modified seedlings from biotechnology company Living Carbon have been planted in a low-lying tract of southern Georgia's pine belt. According to a paper that has yet to be peer reviewed, these trees are engineered to grow 50 percent faster than non-modified ones over five months in the greenhouse. The New York Times reports: The poplars may be the first genetically modified trees planted in the United States outside of a research trial or a commercial fruit orchard. Just as the introduction of the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994 introduced a new industry of genetically modified food crops, the tree planters on Monday hope to transform forestry. Living Carbon, a San Francisco-based biotechnology company that produced the poplars, intends for its trees to be a large-scale solution to climate change. "We've had people tell us it's impossible," Maddie Hall, the company's co-founder and chief executive, said of her dream to deploy genetic engineering on behalf of the climate. But she and her colleagues have also found believers -- enough to invest $36 million in the four-year-old company.
The company's researchers created the greenhouse-tested trees using a bacterium that splices foreign DNA into another organism's genome. But for the trees they planted in Georgia, they turned to an older and cruder technique known as the gene gun method, which essentially blasts foreign genes into the trees' chromosomes. In a field accustomed to glacial progress and heavy regulation, Living Carbon has moved fast and freely. The gene gun-modified poplars avoided a set of federal regulations of genetically modified organisms that can stall biotech projects for years. (Those regulations have since been revised.) By contrast, a team of scientists who genetically engineered a blight-resistant chestnut tree using the same bacterium method employed earlier by Living Carbon have been awaiting a decision since 2020. [...]
In contrast to fast-growing pines, hardwoods that grow in bottomlands like these produce wood so slowly that a landowner might get only one harvest in a lifetime, said [Vince Stanley, a seventh-generation farmer who manages more than 25,000 forested acres in Georgia's pine belt]. He hopes Living Carbon's "elite seedlings" will allow him to grow bottomland trees and make money faster. "We're taking a timber rotation of 50 to 60 years and we're cutting that in half," he said. "It's totally a win-win." [...] The U.S. Forest Service, which plants large numbers of trees every year, has said little about whether it would use engineered trees. To be considered for planting in national forests, which make up nearly a fifth of U.S. forestland, Living Carbon's trees would need to align with existing management plans that typically prioritize forest health and diversity over reducing the amount of atmospheric carbon, said Dana Nelson, a geneticist with the service. "I find it hard to imagine that it would be a good fit on a national forest," Dr. Nelson said. Living Carbon is focusing for now on private land, where it will face fewer hurdles. Later this spring it will plant poplars on abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania. By next year Ms. Hall and Mr. Mellor hope to be putting millions of trees in the ground. The report notes that the modified trees are all female, "so they won't produce pollen."
"They're also being planted alongside native trees like sweet gum, tulip trees and bald cypress, to avoid genetically identical stands of trees known as monocultures; non-engineered poplars are being planted as experimental controls."
The company's researchers created the greenhouse-tested trees using a bacterium that splices foreign DNA into another organism's genome. But for the trees they planted in Georgia, they turned to an older and cruder technique known as the gene gun method, which essentially blasts foreign genes into the trees' chromosomes. In a field accustomed to glacial progress and heavy regulation, Living Carbon has moved fast and freely. The gene gun-modified poplars avoided a set of federal regulations of genetically modified organisms that can stall biotech projects for years. (Those regulations have since been revised.) By contrast, a team of scientists who genetically engineered a blight-resistant chestnut tree using the same bacterium method employed earlier by Living Carbon have been awaiting a decision since 2020. [...]
In contrast to fast-growing pines, hardwoods that grow in bottomlands like these produce wood so slowly that a landowner might get only one harvest in a lifetime, said [Vince Stanley, a seventh-generation farmer who manages more than 25,000 forested acres in Georgia's pine belt]. He hopes Living Carbon's "elite seedlings" will allow him to grow bottomland trees and make money faster. "We're taking a timber rotation of 50 to 60 years and we're cutting that in half," he said. "It's totally a win-win." [...] The U.S. Forest Service, which plants large numbers of trees every year, has said little about whether it would use engineered trees. To be considered for planting in national forests, which make up nearly a fifth of U.S. forestland, Living Carbon's trees would need to align with existing management plans that typically prioritize forest health and diversity over reducing the amount of atmospheric carbon, said Dana Nelson, a geneticist with the service. "I find it hard to imagine that it would be a good fit on a national forest," Dr. Nelson said. Living Carbon is focusing for now on private land, where it will face fewer hurdles. Later this spring it will plant poplars on abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania. By next year Ms. Hall and Mr. Mellor hope to be putting millions of trees in the ground. The report notes that the modified trees are all female, "so they won't produce pollen."
"They're also being planted alongside native trees like sweet gum, tulip trees and bald cypress, to avoid genetically identical stands of trees known as monocultures; non-engineered poplars are being planted as experimental controls."
Bring back the American Chestnut (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's lock up some carbon in that.
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And Elm trees.
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It appears this is happening:
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry; Availability of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Draft Plant Pest Risk Assessment for Determination of Nonregulated Status for Blight-Tolerant Darling 58 American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) Developed Using Genetic Engineering [federalregister.gov]
Ermagerd! (Score:2)
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Re: Ermagerd! (Score:3)
Sane and rational are two different things, and it's certainly not the latter. Nor is it particularly educated. Any time plants naturally reproduce, you get millions of mutations that we literally have no idea what they do, nor do we even have any idea what's mutated.
It's actually that very property that we've been using to genetically modify our food supply since time immemorial. In fact it's very highly unlikely that you have eaten anything in your life that wasn't in some way genetically modified by huma
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Re: Ermagerd! (Score:2)
Re: Ermagerd! (Score:2)
Few GMO products involve spicing. But let's go with your fish into a plant analogy anyways (which is based on irrational fearmongering similar to the tactics anti-vaxxers use, but I digress.) In all likelihood, the fish gene is going to be smaller. We're taking maybe tens of thousands of nucleotides. That pales in comparison.
But more importantly, the argument is against the "unknown", but it's not at all unknown. Quite the opposite, actually. You say that my argument is paper thin, but you have none at all
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Attempting to smear me as an anti-science anti-vaxxer isn't a good look for your argument.
You did that all by yourself dude, all I did was call attention to the obvious.
The important and unpredictable thing is the possible interactions between genes. Thus the "risk surface" is the size of both genomes.
This smells of BS and I'd like to know what your source for that is. Fewer than 3% of all mutations are actually beneficial to the organism (and even then, most of the time in very subtle ways,) another 7% or so do nothing at all (i.e. they just code the exact same amino acid,) and 90% or so are bad. Most of the time when you modify genes in any way, let alone splice an entire gene, you're going to break something in such a way t
Re: Ermagerd! (Score:2)
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So much anti-science BS in one post.
No, the scientific consensus at this point is that anti-GMO is anti-science. That's you.
The antivaxxer smear is BS because vaccines are not systemic, they could only injury the individuals who took them, plus the effects are easily measured and compared to the benefits (less of the disease effects).
The point isn't that they're the same, the point is that you're using their playbook. And although this is in a different category, your goal is the same: Using scare tactics, often based on science fiction, to create FUD.
This not true of GMOs, there three reasons they should be avoided.
Oh boy...
1. The ecosystem is a complex system, effects are therefore rather difficult, or often impossible to predict.
This is true of everything biology. You're not winning any points with this. Plus this falls very firmly in the "we shouldn't play god, because only the almighty can understand" or "we mortals
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You state that there is a "scientific consensus" on GMOs being "safe. There is no such consensus in meta-analyses of scientific papers, although there is a consensus among science journalists, skewing public perception.
This working paper [fooledbyrandomness.com] explains the different ca
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You haven't refuted a single one of my three points. Looking forward to that detail "later". In fact it seems you pretty much agree with them all, but are unwilling to take them to the logical conclusion.
Thank you captain obvious. I didn't need to nor do I intend to. What I'm saying is you're deliberately misapplying these points in order to fit a narrative. Your talking points (and that's all they are is just talking points, they offer nothing in the way of supporting your argument) are basically the same as an anti-vaxxer claiming that some vaccinated people still die from the virus. Yes, no shit, but that's not the fucking point. So why would I try to refute that?
You state that there is a "scientific consensus" on GMOs being "safe. There is no such consensus in meta-analyses of scientific papers, although there is a consensus among science journalists, skewing public perception.
*grin*
https://www.pewresearch.org/sc... [pewresearch.org]
Lo
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That's like saying the overwhelming consensus is that HIV can't be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, and therefore the overwhelming consensus is that HIV is
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That was easy.
Talk about ignorant.
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You remind me of this:
https://www.dailymotion.com/vi... [dailymotion.com]
It's particularly rich given you obviously have little to no understanding of the subject matter and you go around calling people ignorant.
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You are afraid of what you don't understand. It's natural. But you should shut up when people who do understand are talking. Because you don't understand.
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No way you can assure safety of those extreme evolutionary jumps.
If you were unable to see how that applies to your false claim, you are the problem, not the opposition.
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No way you can assure safety of those extreme evolutionary jumps.
[Citation needed]. Stop making shit up.
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A walrus is MUCH farther separated in both genes and on-off epigenetics from a fungus than it is from a seal.
while hybridization between the two is unknown, it is an absolute certainty that should such occur it will be far more likely to survive without breakdown or unexpected results than gene insertion of morel into Walrus, or vice versa.
The evolutionary process has had millions of years to isolate unstable gene matches in the first case and none at all to remove them from the second.
So, NOT as s
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We are much further separated evolutionary speaking from vitamin C or even iron, and yet those are essential nutrients.
You don't know how to actually analyze DNA, so all you have are dumb analogies that mislead you. Get a text book.
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That there are now reverse transcripts as large as 190,000 AMU changes nothing, you have no idea WHERE any mutation will arise.
Without millennia of interaction with the major population, you will get mules instead of sports.
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If you have a problem with a particular plant product (I have a problem with kudzu), then that is one thing. But if you are just opposed to GMO in an ignorant fashion, then you are a conspiracy theorist.
Learn science. Don't act in a knee-jerk fashion because someone says words you don't understand.
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>>while having zero idea what the long term impact will be.
I'm going to need a citation for that
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grafting is a bit different from genetic modification.
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Breeding on the other hand, _is_ genetic modification and we have been using it to produce more robust food sources for millenia
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The report notes that the modified trees are all female, "so they won't produce pollen."
May I be the first to say: "Life finds a way."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Ermagerd! (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, while I don't know about poplars in particular, sex reversal is not uncommon in many types of nominally dioecious plants.
Poplar species (for example where I am, black cottonwood, which is the fastest growing tree in Iceland already) also are very prone to having broken branches root; in the wild such branches can be swept away in waterways and root far from the parent trees.
This just overall sounds like a terrible idea. If these genes contaminate mixed forests that contain wild poplars and give them a competitive advantage, it's going to throw their entire ecosystems off. Could literally lead to extinctions. Couldn't they at least have included a genetic vulnerability as well bound to the genes that increase the growth rate, so that they could be selectively targeted with herbicides?
If they were going to plant genetically modified poplars somewhere, it really should have been a place like Iceland where poplars aren't native (well... we have one native aspen, the super-rare-here Populus tremula, but it doesn't bloom, only spreading by rootstocks, so there's no concerns of contamination).
On an unrelated note, what they're doing is really challenging, and I'm surprised they succeeded. Sounds like they're sort of converting C3 plants (Populus tremula x alba) to C4 plants. This would be a really big deal in crops. Basically, RuBisCo - the most common protein on Earth, what fixes carbon from the air - is really bad at its job. Because CO2 is sparse in the atmosphere RuBisCo often accidentally binds O2 instead (photorespiration), and instead of gaining a carbon atom, it has to spend a carbon atom to regenerate the RuBisCo, which is a huge waste of energy on this energy-intensive process. C4 plants (like many grasses) have evolved a trick where they use a much more selective enzyme, PEP carboxylase, to sequester carbon as malate, then move the malate to inner bundle sheath cells, convert it back to CO2, and then in the nearly-pure-CO2 environment, RuBisCo can function without photorespiration. It costs energy to do this, but in warmer and/or drier environments, it's a significant competitive advantage. It's similar to CAM metabolism used in desert plants, where they only make malate during the night and only use it during the day, so they can keep the stomata closed all day and minimize water loss further. But CAM is less efficient because it costs energy to store malate; it's a tradeoff.
The Titanic of GMO crops (Score:2)
In much the same way as similarly-named "hype man" Flavor Flav faded into relative obscurity, the Flavr Savr tomato [wikipedia.org] also lacked staying power. It was discontinued in 1997 and the company which produced it was later acquired by Monsanto. Using it as a pioneering example in the field of GMO crops is a bit like that episode of Star Trek Voyager where Tom Paris says he designed a special bulkhead system drawing inspiration from the Titanic.
Janeway: The Titanic? As I recall, it sank.
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Using it as a pioneering example in the field of GMO crops is a bit like that episode of Star Trek Voyager where Tom Paris says he designed a special bulkhead system drawing inspiration from the Titanic.
Janeway: The Titanic? As I recall, it sank.
Ach, so gloomy. It's a brilliant solution! All you have to do is trans-reverse the ionization in the warp coils and focus the phase emitter. Viola! (a stringed instrument)
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Pshaw, route it to a part of a phaser, I believe it should be routed through the Navigational Deflector HA !
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Janeway: The Titanic? As I recall, it sank.
Oh, the fools! Why didn't they build it with six thousand and one hulls?
Let's hope... (Score:2)
...that the trees does not have flowers...
We already have honey that can drive you crazy and even kill you (honey from the Rhododendron flowers).
Could you imagine what a honey from an untested, unknown gene-edited tree can do to health?
Or should I BELIEVE they took bees (and/or any other pollinators) into account for their safety protocols?
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Or should I BELIEVE they took bees (and/or any other pollinators) into account for their safety protocols?
RTFS. The trees are all female, so they will produce no pollen.
Jurassic Plant (Score:2)
Or should I BELIEVE they took bees (and/or any other pollinators) into account for their safety protocols?
RTFS. The trees are all female, so they will produce no pollen.
Well, as long as they didn't use amphibian DNA as well...
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Re: Jurassic Plant (Score:2)
That depends on the sex determining mechanism. In the XY system for example, the X chromosome does not carry the information necessary to produce spermatozoa. So while the males would carry the needed information for both egg and sperm, the females just have eggs.
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>The trees are all female, so they will produce no pollen.
Not a poplarologist (or any kind of biologist really), but can't pollen from a closely related species/variety fertilize those flowers? While cross-species fertilization is AFAIK rare, and usually results in infertile hybrids, hybrid speciation [wikipedia.org] is apparently somewhat common in plants.
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Yeah da - tree weeds (Score:2)
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They are an invasive species in the alpine areas of Australia
Good. Then we're even for the Australian blue gum eucalyptus trees which are an invasive species in California.
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Poplar firewood is shit. Poplar is the softest hardwood there is. It goes up like a match and while it's great for starting a fire, it's gone before it generates any real heat. It just doesn't have the required density that a hard hardwood does for decent heating. And it leaves this big flakey white ash that's a pain in the ass to clean up and takes up a lot of space, so you need to clean out the stove a lot more.
Oak, man. And hickory. And beech. And anything else that takes a lot longer than 20 year
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Poplar is used in the paper industry, mostly for newsprint and toilet paper. I could see where this could come in handy there.
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Unforeseen consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
These trees grow faster:
They will compete with slower growing trees and eventually replace them; thus becoming an invasive specie.
As they grow faster, they will use more water and nutrients, drawn more quickly from soil and air, for their growth.
Faster tree growth means less wood density and greater fire susceptibility.
... and what other unforeseen consequences?
Re:Unforeseen consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
These trees are all female so that they don't release pollen to fertilize other trees.
These trees are all grown on private land, so they don't compete with trees in natural forests.
This isn't someone's pet anaconda that gets loose and procreates, or even a fast-growing pest plant like kudzu. These trees still take 30 years to mature. They will be easy to track and control.
Perhaps. But these are on private land that will be set aside specifically for this purpose. These will be grown as "crops" to be harvested and re-planted. This is agriculture rather than reforestation. So they'll be fertilized and watered as necessary.
This is complete conjecture. There's no reason to believe that these trees are any more susceptible to fire than natural trees.
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These trees are all grown on private land, so they don't compete with trees in natural forests.
Until they do.
This isn't someone's pet anaconda that gets loose and procreates, or even a fast-growing pest plant like kudzu.
Until it is.
So they'll be fertilized and watered as necessary.
Until we lose control. And we always do.
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Until we lose control. And we always do.
Yeah. I remember when we lost control of corn and it grew wild and became the most common plant in florida. Took forever to pull it out of the everglades. We actually had to introduce pythons in the everglades to get rid of it, and we all know what problems that caused!
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Poplars can and do reproduce via stray roots and stray branches (they root very easily). Wouldn't be unusual for a root to come up a hundred feet away and grow into a tree. And female trees will accept windblown pollen from male trees, and voila, a bazillion windborne seeds, all carrying the new genetics. So yes, they can and will overseed and outcompete the next generation of native trees, possibly somewhere well away from the original plot.
I have an infinite cottonwood (poplar) generator in my garden, bec
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Yea, I was worried more about what happens after they've replaced all the native trees then inevitably get eradicated by some fungal blight to which the old ones had long since grown a natural immunity.
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Those answers lie no further away than looking at the other two dozen genetically engineered plant species that have been growing out there alongside their native counterparts for the last two decades.
We know, other than growth density, that those consequences you mention are true.
I'm not saying you are wrong, only that they are not "unforeseen" in the slightest.
We have 20+ years of practical experience providing those answers.
"May be the first" (Score:2)
This is like saying "....up to one million dollars"!
Pretty sure these are not the first.
Chestnuts come to mind. for one thing.
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Have they those out yet? The comment phase only ended december 27 2022 [federalregister.gov].
Real cool bro. (Score:3)
these trees are engineered to grow 50 percent faster than non-modified ones
And it won't change no ecosystems or nuthing. I swear.
Life will find a way (Score:2)
The report notes that the modified trees are all female, "so they won't produce pollen."
Yeah, I've heard this one before. Did someone go around and look up the trees' skirts and check?
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Yeah, I've heard this one before. Did someone go around and look up the trees' skirts and check?
Even when you do, it's complicated [uga.edu].
Sequesr (Score:2)
I'm not sure about these poplars, but poplars grew in large drainage ditches near the water. They were fast-growing junk trees that blew down in winds.
They grew so fast I always thought they'd be a good candidate for carbon sequestration. I have no idea if it is good for wood building, or just burying, as the type of sequestration.
All female (Score:1)
The report notes that the modified trees are all female, "so they won't produce pollen."
Didn't Jurassic Park teach us anything?
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At least they tried! far too many times they are just greedy and not careful which can create problems that may not be acknowledged until decades after the harm began. Severe punishments and regulations should have been created in the 90s before anything was let out in the wild. The incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance as usual... is still staggering.
Seems risky. What about princess trees? (Score:2)
The report notes that the modified trees are all female, "so they won't produce pollen."
"They're also being planted alongside native trees like sweet gum, tulip trees and bald cypress, to avoid genetically identical stands of trees known as monocultures; non-engineered poplars are being planted as experimental controls."
Are the non-engineered poplars planted around them also all female?
See also princess trees [wikipedia.org] (paulownia tomentosa, aka princess tree, empress tree, or foxglove-tree), which is the world's fastest growing tree and the best at carbon capture [bloomberg.com] (lighter paywall [archive.org]), without genetic modifications. Poplars grow quickly, but I'd be surprised if they compete with princess trees even given a 150% growth rate over normal poplars; princess trees can grow 10 to 20 feet in their first year alone while hybrid poplars are h
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Pine beetle fungus resistance (Score:2)