A6
Farm Indiana // june 2013
Among commodity crops, non-genetically altered seeds are a thing of the past Story by Jim Mayfield
W
hen scientist Gregor Mendel began poring over his pea plants in the middle of the 19th century to determine what traits pass where and why, he could not possibly have imagined the day when genes could and would be modified to highlight specific characteristics. Nor could he imagine that multinational corporations would one day be so invested in corn, soybeans and cotton seeds that company leaders would be willing to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to protect that investment. But the reality is this: On May 13, the high court agreed with Monsanto that Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman could not use the company’s genetically modified soybeans, which are protected by a patent, gathered at a
grain elevator to later create new seeds unless he paid the company a fee. Genetically engineered seed and companies’ return on their high-end research and development investments are here to stay and now make up the bulk of what goes in the ground. The majority of the country’s four commodity crops — corn, canola, cotton and soybeans — are now genetically engineered. In the 1920s, the U.S. government began experimenting with crosspollination, and a decade later inbreeding corn was in full bloom, transferring pollen to the silks of the same plant. Later, single crossing of two inbred lines and double crossing of single crossbreeds all moved toward making plants more durable, and that increased yield.
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