GM Crops Found In The Wild

August 9, 2010 11:46 AM EDT

Genetically modified crops are everywhere, and not just on the farm.

A study of canola plants in North Dakota found the first evidence of genetically modified plants in wild populations, away from farmers' fields. It shows that plants such as Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola, which is designed to be resistant to herbicides, can end up breeding on its own and even cross-pollinating with other plants. This phenomenon has been observed in Canada, Japan and Australia, but this is the first time it has been seen in the U.S.

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Graduate student Meredith G. Schafer from the University of Arkansas, and colleagues from North Dakota State University, California State University, Fresno and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency studies land areas along 5,400 kilometers (3,355 miles) of interstate, state and county roads in North Dakota. They collected, photographed and tested 406 canola plants.

Of the plants, 86 percent tested positive for one of two proteins that appear in genetically modified crops to give resistance to herbicides. On top of that a small number - only two - showed two sets of proteins.

Cynthia Sagers, a biology professor at the University of Arkansas and a co-author with Schafer, said since there are no multiple-herbicide strains of canola sold commercially, the plants showing two proteins are clear indication that the genetically modified canola has bred with other varieties. "That's how we ended up with a novel combination of traits," she said.

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Sagers added that billions of seeds are never harvested, as canola seeds are tiny, and much of the population of modified plants was found near canola processing facilities or along roads near where trucks stop, indicating that falling off the trucks during delivery is a likely source of the seeds.

Canola in itself is not a very competitive plant - it doesn't invade areas the way that water hyacinth or kudzu has in the American south. "This isn't the alien plant that eats your poodle," Sagers said.

But in areas that are treated with herbicides - many of them by roadsides or lawns - the canola would survive. And in those places it could breed with other varieties, either domestic or wild, and even evolve more complex kinds of herbicide resistance.

Monsanto, for its part, says it doesn't litigate against farmers who show their modified canola in their fields inadvertently - only in cases of willful violation of the patents. But the study does raise the question of what happens if the genes Monsanto inserted into its plants become ubiquitous.

Meanwhile, Sager says the next project will be to catalog the growth of canola more thoroughly, looking at a larger population. "More than half the arable land surface of the Earth is now covered in modified crops," she said. "So this is going to be an important area."

This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader