Okay, coffee ingested.
Goooood Day #qoto and #mastodon !
I hope you'll have a wonderful day today. It's another lovely day in Tel Aviv- the heat is finally starting to bleed off and it's super comfortable outside today. I'm feeling good, always a bonus.
So, #RandomQuestion for you find peoples today: Genetically Modified Organisms- specifically crop plants: What's your opinion?
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@Surasanji I am a huge GMO supporter for all the good it has brought to starving people. The only legitimate risk I can see is if those species escape to the wild and out-compete native species. With that said for crops it is a non-issue since they rarely grow well in the wild.
@freemo I was doing some reading on 'wild escape' from some types of GM Corn and Wheat, and typically they are out competed by wild strains because of how they're engineered- like to have herbicidal resistances.
Those resistances suck up energy and in environments where there aren't any herbicides the environment those plants without the resistance out compete the others.
But, you are correct. Domesticated species do not, typically, survive well in wholly wild environments.
@Surasanji Yes the bigger problem is from interbreeding early on. The scenario would be, say, a modified species where one of many modifications is beneficial in the wild and the other factors is not. It passes on that gene through interbreeding on one of its children but not the other qualities. that child may pick up that gene and spread it.
Again this hasnt been much of a problem yet, and generally most species arent at high risk of this like corn (which rarely even grows in the wild). But it is the only legitimate concern I can think of.