Interesting Tidbits

Weed World Matt Brown: Today we walk into the world of weed.
Big business and large scale farming are engaged in a see-saw struggle of selection and survival with the natural world.
Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, I'm Matt Brown.
One of the world's biggest chemical companies, the Monsanto Corporation, has confirmed that a notorious Australian weed, rye grass, has developed tolerance to its pesticide - Roundup.
Roundup is the world's best selling weed killer. And the Australian rye grass is the worlds first confirmed case of Roundup tolerance.
It occurred on a farm at the end of the asphalt, near Echuca in Northern Victoria. The farmer, Derek Barnstable, had sprayed with Roundup to clear his field of weeds before planting - just like he'd done for the last ten years.
Derek Barnstable: When I came back approximately three weeks later, I saw these very isolated plants that were absolutely still thriving.
Everything else around them was dead, but because they had access to very fertile soil, and plenty of moisture, the plants had just reached gigantic proportions on an individual basis.
Matt Brown: So you were expecting to come back and just see a lot of clear soil.
Derek Barnstable: Yes, absolutely dead. That's what I always expect to see, I don't spray Roundup, or glyphosate, if I don't intend to kill the plants.
Matt Brown: Rye grass is the evil genius of the weed world.
Steve Powels: Rye grass in Australia is without doubt the worlds most spectacular case of resistance. We have more resistance in Australia, in rye grass, to herbicides, than any other plant in the world.
Now it's an interesting weed; it's both Australia's worst weed of crops, and a couple of hundred million dollars is spent every year trying to control it with herbicides; and at the same time it's a very valuable pasture plant.
And of course we all know that Australia in the past, and to a great extent still, relies upon the sheep and wool industry. And so rye grass, being an excellent feed for livestock, was widely planted across southern Australia but as cropping has replaced pastures and sheep, this plant has turned, in the minds of farmers, from being a valuable pasture plant to a severe weed.
Matt Brown: From the WAITE Institute at the University of Adelaide, Professor Steve Powels.
The weed killer in question is glyphosate, which has been marketed by Monsanto as Roundup.
Steve Powels: Glyphosate which most people have known as Roundup, is the worlds largest selling herbicide.
It is a tremendous herbicide from many viewpoints, and because of its properties, the main one being, that it will control all the small annual plants, that means that it can't be used in the crop situation because it will kill the crop species.
But it will kill a wide range of weed species, and therefore people use glyphosate in many different ways. It's used in broad acre agriculture in Australia, very extensively used, and it's used in broad acre agriculture around the world; and it's used for example in the backyard by a wide range of people.
It's a very easy to use herbicide with very good environmental properties, and for this and other reasons it has become the worlds most widely selling herbicide.
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Matt Brown: Any weed which tolerates glyphosate is bound to be bad news because the latest estimates put the total cost of weed control in Australia at around $5 billion.
The war against weeds used to mean farmers ploughed the soil a lot more than they do these days, and the ploughing helped cause massive erosion, the loss of top soil, and dust storms.
Farmers like Derek Barnstable have come to rely on spraying Roundup to kill their weeds.
Derek Barnstable: Glyphosate enabled me to kill weeds while not abusing the ground through over-cultivation.
In Australia it's fairly noticeable that most soils, and particularly red soils in particular, can degrade very quickly through over cultivation.
Matt Brown: So, this being able to use a chemical like glyphosate really has been at the core of what's called conservation farming?
Derek Barnstable: Yes, in the last ten years or so it's the most frequently sold and used herbicide in Australia. And it's been very good at its job of killing the weeds, and allowing us to establish crops without cultivation.
Matt Brown: And Monsanto have been ploughing money into distributing Roundup around the world. Last year announcing:
READER: Plans to invest nearly $200 million over the next three years in manufacturing capacity and new process technology to produce its flagship Roundup herbicide in seven countries.
The investments totalling $200 million will be used at several existing herbicide manufacturing plants in the United States, Belgium and Brazil.
In addition several new facilities for finishing Roundup herbicide will be built or expanded in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Australia, The Peoples Republic of China, and the United States.
Starting in 1995 Monsanto more than doubled its manufacturing capacity to produce Roundup herbicides, and related Monsanto glyphosate herbicides.
Matt Brown: While the company has been pumping out its products, the new Roundup resistant weed has been lurking in the shadows, but it's taken a long time coming.
You see Roundup has been used for more than 20 years. Many other chemical sprays faltered long before it, and Monsanto says that given the high volumes of Roundup sprayed around the world, the Australian weed is an isolated finding.
Maybe the Roundup record has looked so good the farming world has been fooled into thinking that, with this spray at least, tomorrow would never come.
Derek Barnstable: Well, to be quite honest I don't think there's been any thought that there would be eventual tolerance to the plant. This is the first documented case world wide, as we understand it.
And I dare say people, until they actually find the first case, and maybe the second or third case, they're not going to think about it, that's the problem.
Matt Brown: How do you characterise the attitude towards using glyphosate? Is it being seen as a bit of a fix all?
Derek Barnstable: I suppose in some instances it could have been viewed as that, but I know with a lot of people who have been direct drilling or no-tilling for the approximate same length of time as what I have, they've had wonderful results. Their crop yields have gone up, their soils improved out of sight, maybe it has been a very easy cure all, but maybe now it's got a cost.
Matt Brown: Derek Barnstable has destroyed the weeds he found in a bid to stop the plant from escaping. And the location is being kept a secret.
The new tolerant weed was tested and confirmed by Professor Jim Pratley, just over the boarder from the Barnstable farm at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, southern New South Wales.
The University has bought the rights to the Echuca strain, and they've got a three-year research deal with Monsanto.
Jim Pratley took us into the glass house where the rye grass has been living through four times the lethal dose of Roundup.
Jim Pratley: Right, well what you can see here, Matt, is a tray that has a series of little cubicles, or cells. There are several rows of cells, and we've tried a number of different samples of rye grass in there, and compared it with our Echuca sample. And you can see there that all the other samples have died from the herbicide rate, but we have one row that's actually standing up and grinning at us. And that's our resistant bio-type.
Matt Brown: So in all those little squares, all of this dirt was actually a live plant until you sprayed it with a herbicide?
Jim Pratley: Yes, that's right, yes, and so it's succumbed to the herbicide.
Matt Brown: And right down the middle, the Echuca strain, which is looking very health thanks very much.
Jim Pratley: Yes it is and I guess that's why we're so interested in it that it's reacting quite differently to anything we've seen before.
Matt Brown: Is this a serious worry for farmers?
Jim Pratley: Well it is a serious worry in the sense that I guess there's been a belief that perhaps this wouldn't happen.
In itself it's not a major disaster in that we have management systems that will allow us to manage the problem. But what it's actually telling is that we need to perhaps get rid of perhaps a blaze attitude of complete faith in Roundup which is a very important chemical to our farming systems.
And I think what we've tended to do is accept that Roundup has been such a good chemical that we don't need to check how its gone.
Matt Brown: Exactly how this new tolerance emerged is still being investigated, but when the initial research was published the news spread faster than pollen in the wind. And there was interest from around the world.
Jim Pratley: Well I wasn't quite prepared for the response we got. Clearly it was a finding of significance around the world, and I received enormous numbers of e-mails and faxes, and letters and phone calls from people who wanted to know more.
I mean I could only tell them what we'd found. But clearly it was a finding of great significance to a lot of people.
Matt Brown: What sort of interest did you get?
Jim Pratley: Well a range of interests, obviously chemical companies were interested because it has implications for the industry world wide, I guess.
We had a lot of interest from environmentalists, and I guess the scientific community were really interested in the findings because of the perception that Roundup resistance wouldn't occur.
Matt Brown: Monsanto confirmed the weeds tolerance in August. At the same time, the company has been marketing different sorts of crops that are themselves tolerant to Roundup, they're called Roundup ready crops.
Dr Nigel Urwin.
Nigel Urwin: They're developing transgenic crop plants which are resistant to herbicides like glyphosate, which is Roundup produced by Monsanto.
And the advantage of those crops is that you can get rid of weeds at anytime during that crops growth. So rather than spraying initially with Roundup which kills the majority of plants, initially before you plant, you can spray that crop at various times during the year when it demands it.
Matt Brown: So, you can kill your weeds after planting without killing your crop just by spraying Roundup. But the Australian rye grass weed has also got the competitive edge that the new Roundup ready crops are supposed to have.
And the discovery of the Roundup ready weed has served as a reminder to the farming world. When it comes to staving off weed resistance: if you're on a good thing, don't stick to it.
The Chair of Australia's Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee, Professor Nancy Millis.
Nancy Millis: Roundup itself has been one of the very good herbicides in that development of resistance by weeds has been non-existent until quite recently. And the first report of resistance has come from an Australian experience in Victoria, in which rye grass has been shown to have developed tolerance of glyphosate.
But that's the first report of that.
Matt Brown: How significant is it to you, that Monsanto now have confirmed, yes that rye grass is tolerant to glyphosate?
Nancy Millis: This is very important because it does indicate what every one knows with a biocide, which has a specific biochemical target - you will always have the possibility that a mutation can occur in the host plant such as the development of resistance.
And that can happen, and I think every biologist will tell you, it's likely to happen. It's a matter of when.
Matt Brown: Nature is the mutation master.
In Derek Barnstable's words 'nature and clod kicker farmer have done what Monsanto spent millions of dollars engineering' - a Roundup resistant plant.
In New York City the Environmental Defence Fund has been trying to work out what the Australian weed means.
Senior scientist, Dr Becky Goldburg:
Becky Goldburg: Historically Monsanto has argued that glyphosate was almost different from other herbicides. And clearly what's happened in Australia shows that that outlook is wrong, glyphosate is vulnerable, just like other chemicals.
Matt Brown: And what questions does it raise for the genetically engineered crops, which are designed to be sprayed with glyphosate?
Becky Goldburg: Well it means they may have a very limited life span. That once weeds evolve resistance to glyphosate those crops will no longer be useful.
Matt Brown: Those sorts of problems, if they occur, probably won't develop until the transgenic crops are well established in the farming industry.
Meanwhile Monsanto is reshaping itself, it's becoming a "life sciences" company. Visit the web-site and you'll see a page filled with butterflies, product information, and news of the latest environmental awards.
And as the chemical giant moves into genetic engineering, it's been buying up the very source of crop seeds.
READER: Monsanto company has reached agreement to acquire Holden's Foundation Seeds Incorporated, the leading foundation seed corn company in the world.
As a foundation seed company Holden's produces the parent seed, used by retail seed companies to create hybrid seed for farmers world-wide.
More than 35% of the corn acres planted in the United States use genetic material developed by Holden's.
These acquisitions mean the latest technological advances will be made available to the greatest possible number of seed companies of all sizes with unparalleled speed.
Matt Brown: For the shareholders, and maybe world agriculture, the future seems rosy with genetic engineering.
But making and selling chemicals, like Roundup, is still at the core of Monsanto's business.
Becky Goldburg: Monsanto has historically been a chemical company - it's manufactured agrochemicals as well as other kinds of chemicals.
And Monsanto is now heavily moving into bio-technology which it sees as technology for the future. But the company is also using bio-technology to leverage more profits from its more traditional chemical technologies.
In particular the company is heavily promoting sale of so called Roundup Ready Crops. Crops that are genetically engineered to tolerate applications of the chemical herbicide Roundup, which Monsanto manufacturers.
Roundup has historically been one of Monsanto's most profitable products, and certainly the company must see the sale of crops designed to encourage the use of Roundup as a way to generate more Roundup sales.
Matt Brown: Monsanto is based in St Louis, Missouri.
Nigel Urwin: Monsanto in St Louis consists of two places, one is the main office, headquarters based downtown; and the other is a research facility purely for plant science.
And there they have many growth rooms, many green houses, and many laboratories staffed with an army of scientists, basically, looking at all sorts of aspects of plants molecular biology.
Matt Brown: Dr Nigel Urwin is formerly of the University of Glasgow. He's visited Monsanto HQ, and he's been brought in to Wagga Wagga to help unlock the secrets of the Echuca strain.
Nigel Urwin: Because if we can stop plants becoming resistant to the herbicide for longer, then that effectively gives the herbicide a longer life, and that's important because a lot of time and money is spent developing these chemicals.
And we want to use them in the most successful and environmentally friendly way that we possibly can.
There's a line in Jurassic Park, which I'm sure has been quoted a few times where this is concerned, 'nature finds a way'. And it always does. If you use a compound to kill a population, whether it's insects or weeds, then nature will find a way to produce a plant or an insect which is resistant to that.
Matt Brown: Meanwhile, on the farm in northern Victoria the war on weeds has forced Derek Barnstable back to the plough.
Derek Barnstable: What I would like to hear from the scientific community - are there any other strategies that could be available to me?
And the only one that I worked out for myself is ploughing. But maybe there are other strategies, we don't know.
One things for certain, most cropping people could tell you, you very rarely can graze out a weed, you can't kill weeds by flogging stock on them, and they survive fire, and they survive sometimes cultivation. So what other strategies are there?
That's the whole point, we need some other strategies to come up with.
Matt Brown: While the farmer grapples with his new sort of weed, the new era of transgenic crops has got well underway.
But what good would round up ready crops be on Derek Barnstable's farm, if after spraying Roundup the weeds, too, could still survive.
Derek Barnstable: I think that could well be a double edged sword if people find in the future, say the next ten, 15, 20 years, no matter how long it takes, if they find, as I think they will, communities of glyphosate-resistant rye grass, and you for argument sake introduced a pea or a wheat that's got Roundup glyphosate-resistant genes in it, and you spray that crop out, to take all the weeds out, you're obviously not going to take out any glyphosate resistant rye grass, if it's already there.
So all you're going to do is concentrate the population and concentrate the genes even further. I think you're playing with fire.
Matt Brown: But it may well be isolated the way they say it's isolated, and over 20 years of glyphosate use around the world, it hasn't shown up anywhere else.
Derek Barnstable: But maybe with the strength of advertising, maybe people have never actually associated the product with a possible resistance.
If you took a 1,000 hectare farm, with say 200 rye grass plants per square metre, each one producing a couple of hundred seeds, it's totally unrealistic to think that once it's happened, it will never happen again.
The point being, this is the first, but all the others had a first as well.
Matt Brown: Remember, the Roundup tolerant rye-grass has not popped up all over the world, and Monsanto says the Echuca strain is an isolated example.
But guess what? The Echuca strain is not alone, and there is another Roundup tolerant weed.
Steve Powels says he's discovered a new strain of tolerant rye-grass, and he's preparing to publish new research.
Steve Powels: We have a population of rye grass which comes from a farm situation which has a long history of usage of glyphosate, and we have been able to show very clearly now that it is resistant to glyphosate.
Matt Brown: Are you able to tell us roughly where it's from, what State this..?
Steve Powels: Yes, this is from New South Wales, and comes from an orchard situation and has developed resistance after long term use, 15 to 20 years usage of glyphosate. And is clearly resistant to the herbicide glyphosate.
Matt Brown: So a very different farming context to the resistance that's been confirmed in far northern Victoria?
Steve Powels: Yes. But we shouldn't be surprised by these situations, it's just that glyphosate is a very, very important herbicide world wide. And rye grass is a very, very important weed in Australia, not the least because it so easily develops resistance.
Matt Brown: So, how do you avoid developing resistance while using the new crops?
The advice being given is the same as the advice that's been given for years, regarding weed control: mix it up, dilute the pressure you put on natural selection, alternate the chemicals you spray, and alternate the chemicals with other ways of killing weeds.
But will the new seeds that come with their own brand of weed killer mean farmers will end up spraying more of that same brand?
Or will transgenic crops deliver on the promise of reducing pesticide use and encouraging rotation?
Dr Roger Cousens from La Trobe University.
Roger Cousens: Many farmers are at the moment, even though they don't have glyphosate resistant crops, they are still spraying glyphosate virtually every year, pre sowing. And in fact if the new glyphosate resistant crops mean that they will use glyphosate in that one year, and then the following year because they have a simazene tolerant crop, they will spray just simazene the next year, in fact as far as the weed is concerned you are actually mixing up your herbicide applications.
The repeated application of anything is what we're trying to get away from.
Matt Brown: Does that happen, is that what happens the way farmers farm?
Roger Cousens: Well, the problem is the herbicide resistant crops are still only just coming in; but to actually say what changes in farming practice will be, very difficult to ascertain. Will a farmer be prepared to have in his silos on his farm a silo full of simazene resistant crop seed, and then next door have a silo of a glyphosate resistant crop seed? Um, if the labels fall off the silos or something, you could easily forget which one is resistant to which herbicide and go and sow it and spray the wrong thing, and kill your crop.
So, we really do have to talk to the farmers, watch them and see what their reactions are. Their reactions may not be as enthusiastic as we might expect them to be.
Matt Brown: Dr Roger Cousens. Monsanto's Nicolaas Tydens says the new age of the company's transgenic crops might mean more Roundup, but it can also mean less spraying overall.
Nicolaas Tydens: Typically the use of Roundup in any of these situations would be instead of a herbicide which has already been used five, six, or ten times in the crop or in the rotation.
And what we are doing is introducing a new mode of action with Roundup.
Matt Brown: So it allows farmers to cut down on their overall use of pesticide and replace some of what they're using with Roundup?
Nicholas Tydens: Yes indeed there'd be some fair amount of that and the use of Roundup also reduces the amount of cultivation required in cropping systems as well, which is good for our soil and good for erosion. And they need to be used judiciously, not to replace all other chemicals and all other means of control and now to be used another weapon in the battle against weeds and then also mixing of different herbicides to give you two modes of action as well.
All of those things will help delay, hopefully sustainably, the development of resistance on farms in Australia.
Matt Brown: But hasn't 'mix it up' been the message for quite a long time, and still resistance has developed, there's even tolerance to your best selling herbicide Roundup?
Nicholas Tydens: Yes, it's hard to get the message across that people need to do it now. The unfortunate thing is that resistance is something of a sleeper, and you don't actually see the problem until you've got it almost 100 percent.
I think now, particularly in Western Australia, the whole farming community over there has got the message because there are a large number of farmers who've got major problems with resistance. And they are now looking at all those alternative cropping rotations, and pasture rotations, and weed control methods to make sure that they can retain the use of the herbicides they do have left.
We would expect that farmers would judiciously use Roundup in conjunction with cultivation, and in conjunction with other herbicides as part of their normal crop rotation.
Matt Brown: It costs farmers money to change crops year to year, doesn't it?
Nicholas Tydens: The crops that farmers grow, yes is largely determined by the prices, the performance of crops in their area, and it can be expensive.
But I think you'll find that the message is getting across to farmers that resistance is even more expensive, and they do have to seriously consider the future cost of resistance.
Matt Brown: And why won't the higher cost of the crops that Monsanto, for example, is marketing, actually increase that pressure for farmers to keep planting the one crop, therefore increasing the pressure for resistance?
Nicholas Tydens: Well you say the higher cost of Monsanto's Roundup ready crops, Monsanto would be marketing the crops at a price which we believe would deliver value to the farmers, and we believe that will be the case with the crops that we do introduce.
Matt Brown: Monsanto has been making a serious commitment to increasing the amount of Roundup it produces. Take this announcement from just last month:
READER: Monsanto has announced that up to $136 million will be spent over the next few years at the company's Argentina site, to add and operate new units that would increase the global capacity for the manufacture of Roundup herbicide.
$80 million has been sanctioned by Monsanto, and work is in progress.
Land has been purchased and construction has begun on a glyphosate manufacturing unit which will enable Monsanto to synthesise glyphosate acid in Argentina.
These investments are part of a major world wide program which will enable the company to double its present capacity and meet increasing demand for Roundup.
Matt Brown: The increasing demand for Roundup is good for the company.
But, there have been sticking points, for example, in New York State, the Attorney General took action against Monsanto to stop the company making a number of important and simple claims about its product.
Monsanto has agreed to pay part of New York State's costs and, while Roundup is sold around the world, in New York State, Monsanto has agreed to cease making claims in their ads, that Roundup is environmentally friendly, or bio degradable.
After five years of haggling the company has replaced those assertions with more specific positive information about Roundup's ability to stay where it's put, and break down in the soil.
Monsanto's commitment to Roundup does pay off. From the company's latest financial report.
READER: Monsanto Company reported record sales of $US2.9 billion, in the second quarter of 1997.
Volumes for Roundup herbicide for the second quarter, and first half of the year were up significantly from the same periods in 1996, despite less than ideal weather conditions in the United States that curtailed spring sales of Roundup in the pre planting market.
Sales of crops developed through biotechnology including Roundup ready soybeans, canola and cotton, and insect protected corn, cotton and potatoes, were up year to date from last year's first half revenues.
Matt Brown: The Roundup ready crops, like Roundup ready cotton, have been getting good reviews from farmers.
Mississippi lawyer, Charles Merkel.
Charles Merkel: Farmers that are involved in this had test acreages of the same seed last year, and were very pleased with it, extremely pleased.
They last year thought it was going to be wonderful. They were involved in testing small acreages and so forth, but I mean in general, based on literature that I've seen some of them quoted in, that's used as advertising literature by the companies involved and what they told me, they were very pleased last year, they were very optimistic, that this was going to be a breakthrough in weed control, no-till type farming, you would not have to cultivate during the course of the year.
Obviously it was thought it was going to make a better yield with less effort and less money output into the crop.
Matt Brown: Monsanto says the Roundup ready cotton was such a success that nearly a quarter of a million hectares have been planted in the US this year.
But a handful of farms, in a section of the Mississippi Delta have presented another sticking point for company.
On a small number of farms the crop, which is supposed to be pesticide proof, has somehow been severely damaged.
It's a problem Monsanto says was not observed in five years of testing.
The company is still investigating to see if its expensive gene somehow failed.
Did the farmers get something wrong in their growing and spraying? Or is there an unpredicted local environmental problem getting in the way?
But the farmers are taking action, and Charles Merkel is pushing their case.
Charles Merkel: Oh, there's one client who farms in a locality where an adjoining land owner, a little householder has a garden, a vegetable garden if you will. And because his land abuts hers, right along the edge of that he deliberately did not apply Roundup to the first eight rows of cotton that parallel along the side of her garden. And on the rest of his fields, same dirt, same area, and the cotton it's the same variety, one row different, he applied Roundup over the top with a spray rig as prescribed.
The garden rows that do not have Roundup have a normal looking crop, and in fact, better than average looking crop.
And the rest of the field, immediately adjacent to them, has about a 50% to two thirds reduction of bowl settings. It's a huge apparent difference just looking. and then if you map it bears out what I've said.
Matt Brown: And how can you be sure this isn't because these farmers have wrongly applied Roundup, or have done something in their farming regime which has caused a problem for the crop?
Charles Merkel: Well, of course I assume you're excluding their testimony, or their word to that effect. I mean some of the particular crops in question have been checked by Monsanto, or Delta Pine representatives at one time, and was confirmed that they were still within the proper period of time to be applying the Roundup.
There are fields in this area that even were, the applications were even supervised by company representatives, and they're experiencing the same phenomena with their fields that most of my clients are.
Matt Brown: The new age of genetically engineered seeds raises three main questions: how will you stop weeds from adapting under the pressure of the pesticides sprays, like the weed on the farm in northern Victoria?
Secondly, what will happen when the super crops cross breed with their weedy relatives?; and thirdly, once you've planted a pesticide proof crop, how easy is it to get rid of that crop when you want to move on and plant something else next year?
One of the new crop lines comes from the brassica family - canola - it's a major oil seed used in many products, and different chemical companies have engineered their own canola, to go with their own pesticide sprays.
In Denmark, scientists tested one of the new lines to see if its genes would spread beyond the farm.
Dr Rikke Jorgensen: We found that when we mixed canola and a weedy relative rather common here in Denmark, called brassica campestris, when we mixed these two species in the field these two species hybridised and the hybrids were able to back cross again with the weedy relatives transferring, in this case, a herbicide tolerance gene, inserted into oil seed rape [canola] to the weedy relative.
It was sprayed, this plant, in the field with normal doses of the herbicide that you use, and it was as resistant as its crop parent.
Matt Brown: So, the Denmark research has left no doubt: plant pollen being carried in the wind, or on the wing by a bee, can lead to gene transfer. And in England, they've proved that canola pollen can travel and fertilise other plants at distances far greater than previously thought.
Dr Mike Wilkinson says canola pollen fertilises as far away as two-and-a-half kilometres from the original plant.
Mike Wilkinson: What is done really is switch the emphasis of the argument from if the gene will get out, to what are the consequences of that?
It is an inevitability that, when you get full commercial release of canola, there will be gene flows to feral plants, which are just escapes from agriculture, and also to wild relatives.
Matt Brown: That same crop - canola - has been approved for field trials here in Australia, by the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee, GMAC.
In these trials there are precautions against cross pollination and gene transfer: any relatives of the plant, that might cross breed, are supposed to be removed from areas to which pollen might travel.
And there are other precautions, like 400 metre buffer zones, and the covering of flowers on other canola crops nearby.
According to GMAC, the chances of cross pollination under these conditions are 'low' but when the new super seeds are properly on the market, there's no doubt gene transfers could occur.
READER: GMAC's view is that ultimate general release of the canola would carry some potential for the emergence of glyphosate resistant weeds. This could occur through either gene transfer or selection of the resistant weeds as a result of increased use of a herbicide.
However, GMAC considers that this would be agronomically manageable, since other herbicides, with different modes of action are available for control of such weeds, and of glyphosate tolerant canola volunteers in other crops.
Matt Brown: In other words, you could get transgenic weeds, but it's all under control, or will be brought under control by alternating with different sprays.
And GMAC says a full management system should be developed before full scale release on the farm. But this idea of pesticide proof volunteers, or unwanted crops, could be a problem.
You may have been happy to plant canola this year, but it can spring up later when you're trying to grow something else. And different companies have engineered their own canola, to tolerate their own brands of herbicide.
Dr Mike Wilkinson.
Dr Mike Wilkinson: Yeah, its a particular problem with canola, particularly I've seen fields of potatoes which look like a field of canola, because there's so much canola growing in the field.
So the potential problem is if these appeared and we didn't know what they were they could be a little bit difficult to control. Particularly if there was more than one different sort of herbicide tolerant canola around.
Matt Brown: Under those circumstances what difficulty does a farmer face in deciding how to handle the unwanted plants in the field?
Mike Wilkinson: Well, all but the very best organised farmers will be encouraged to opt for perhaps the use of a further herbicide which may not be as environmentally friendly, or as effective as paraquat or glufosinate or glyphosate, which are currently used.
Matt Brown: The Australian field trials are aimed at refining Roundup ready canola for Australian conditions, and they'll use seed imported from France or Canada.
Monsanto says nearly ten percent of the crop in Canada has been converted to Roundup ready Canola.
And in the midst of all that seed, the lessons about mass-producing transgenic seed are being learned the hard way.
Just a few months ago, Monsanto discovered that some of its transgenic canola seed which had not been approved for human consumption had been unwittingly sold and planted out.
Monsanto had produced two types of transgenic canola. We'll just call them type A and type B. Both were approved for environmental release, but the company only proceeded with seed lot A; and seed lot B did go through to get the crucial approval for human or animal consumption.
After the lab work is finished the seeds must be mass produced for shipment, just like any other seed, and somehow in that process the unauthorised transgenic seed, lot B, was included.
When the company discovered the error, 60,000 bags were recalled, and some crops had to be destroyed.
The Deputy Director of Canada's commercial biotechnology regulator, Dr Margaret Kenny.
Margaret Kenny: This was a canola crop. Canola, as you may well know is used as an oil, for human consumption there is also, after processing, a meal component that can be used for livestock feed.
Matt Brown: So, if this hadn't been picked up by the company, that canola, the unauthorised genetic material would have been used in food production for animals and humans.
Margaret Kenny: Well, that's why we have the regulatory system in place, and that is exactly why, built into the regulations, we do have these requirements for immediate notification when issues are identified and we do have the mechanisms to allow us to take action to suspend products from sale etc.
Matt Brown: As a regulator, if the company hadn't told you, how would you have found out that an unauthorised genetic crop had been planted.
Margaret Kenny: When we carry out our assessment, and this is the same kind of process that you would find in use in any regulatory scheme, it's reasonable certainly to predict, in this case the plant that you are reviewing, and ultimately approving is in fact what will be offered for sale.
That's certainly a reasonable expectation.
Matt Brown: In Australia, the release of genetically modified organisms has been gaining momentum rapidly.
In last years GMAC annual report, the planned releases were dotted right around the map.
To name just a few: In the Northern Territory - transgenic cotton; Western Australia - lupins, canola and salmonella vaccine; South Australia - potatoes Victoria - tomatoes, salmonella and carnations; New South Wales - cotton and canola; Tasmania - potatoes; Queensland - sugar cane and bovine herpes virus 1.
In Australia's biggest genetically modified organism release, 155 million transgenic cotton plants, which make their own caterpillar killing toxins, were planted in farms in New South Wales and Queensland.
The proposals have been assessed by GMAC, the genetic engineering regulator.
GMAC Chair Nancy Millis:
Nancy Millis: At the present time we've looked at about some 80 odd transgenic plants, or other types of transgene organism. But mostly plants.
Matt Brown: How do you evaluate the safety of these proposals?
Nancy Millis: Well, we analyse the properties of the construct and we look at those with respect to whether or not they're related to weeds, whether the gene is therefore likely to get out and cross with the weed; we look at the nature of the DNA that we're putting in, what property it is, then we look at the total result of the new creature, and the environment into which it's going to be used.
Matt Brown: And what sort of testing does GMAC do itself on those proposals?
Nancy Millis: It does not in fact do any laboratory testing, it looks at the data, which they supply to us. And through the development we require the persons to put in a proposal with the data, from previous tests supplied to us, and we also look at information which may be available from the published literature of a similar or exactly the same, sometimes, construct from overseas.
Matt Brown: So, even if it's good science there's a lot of faith being put on the research and information being presented by the companies.
And there are no independent laboratory tests.
Nancy Millis says the system works well, and it's affordable. And she says there's going to have to be a significant effort to overcome irrational fears about genetic engineering which have grown in the public mind.
Nancy Millis: I think that's a bit unfortunate, and I'd like to see in schools that the basic features of genetic engineering are taught, and they are beginning to be taught.
And it does take a while for that to get through the whole education system, and certainly there's been a certain amount of hysteria produced and very strange cartoons produced suggesting the most extraordinary, grotesque monsters that would result from this type of technology.
And that's all been a bit unfortunate.
Matt Brown: This view that it's about Frankenstein's monster?
Nancy Millis: Well that's the sort of thing I meant, and that, when you consider the precision of the technique, where you can take a single gene and place it in a new host, it's pretty unlikely that that one gene is going to result in some horrendous outcome.
Matt Brown: But in terms of the protection that a sceptical public's looking for, bodies like GMAC, in relying on the people who are proposing the technology, and who want to make money out of it, aren't you relying on Dr Frankenstein's research to tell you he won't create a monster?
Nancy Millis: Well you're suggesting that people really want to create monsters, they don't want to create monsters.
They want to create plants which farmers will grow, and produce an improved yield for them.
No farmer will grow a plant which doesn't yield a product he can sell at a profit.
So there's no incentive to make a Frankenstein.
Matt Brown: But Dr Frankenstein wasn't meaning to make a monster, was he? He was trying to make a man?
Nancy Millis: But he didn't try to sell it. These people have got to sell it year after year, so there's absolutely no way that they will create monsters to sell.
And our task as a committee which is why we have field trials, why we have laboratory tests, to ensure that should something go amiss, we will discover it whilst it's still in the laboratory.
So that we not proceed with it if it is showing inappropriate qualities.
Co-ordinating Producer: Linda McGinness; Research: Vanessa Muir; Technical Operator: Greg Richardson; Readings were by Justin Monjo and Robby Buck. Executive Producer: Kirsten Garrett. I'm Matt Brown. New Trait Surfaces in Altered Plant

By JEFF BARNARD
The Associated Press

A weed altered by scientists to resist an herbicide also has developed far greater ability to pollinate other plants and pass on its traits, raising the possibility of ``superweeds'' impervious to weedkillers. The findings also have heightened environmentalists' fears about the dangers of genetic engineering.

Joy Bergelson, a professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, said the findings show that genetic engineering can substantially increase the chances of ``transgene escape,'' or the spread of certain traits from one plant to another.

Her study was published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Charles Margulis of Greenpeace said the results confirm fears that genetically engineering cotton and soybeans to survive spraying with herbicides to make weed-control easier will force farmers to spray heavier doses of herbicides or use types that are less environmentally safe. ``It's just another chink in the armor of the industry, which keeps saying environmentalists' claims of health concerns just aren't justified,'' Margulis said.

Scientists have already recognized that when a genetically engineered crop grows near a weed relative, the gene-engineered trait will eventually transfer to the weed.

In a separate study, Ohio State University scientist Allison Snow found that when weeds acquire herbicide resistance from genetically engineered crops, they maintain their ability to pass these traits on, rather than becoming less fertile, as some had believed.

Ms. Bergelson experimented with a weed called Arabidopsis thaliana, a species commonly used in genetic research. She compared the fertilization rate of plants that were mutated to make them resistant to the herbicide chlorsulphuron, and plants that were genetically altered for the same trait.

The genetically altered plants were able to fertilize other plants at a rate 20 times greater than that of the mutants.

Why this was so is not clear. Ms. Bergelson speculated that the pollen from the genetically altered plants might have a longer lifespan than normal pollen or have some other competitive advantage.

Ms. Bergelson's findings do not raise any fundamental new issues for companies developing genetically engineered plants, said Rob Horsch, vice president and general manager of the Agracetus Campus of Monsanto Co. in Middleton, Wis. The government already has stringent controls.

``The possibility of outcrossing has always and will always exist, and none of the regulatory decisions or safety analyses that I'm familiar with depend on arguments about the frequency of cross-pollination itself,'' Horsch said.