The issue of co-existence of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM crops is important in the European Union (EU. Related to this issue is gene flow, which is currently evaluated by ranking a crop as a high, medium, or low risk one. This system, however, does not provide the detail required to highlight aspects of a crop's biology that will serve to challenge coexistence management.

Marie-Louise Flannery of Teagasc Crops Research Centre, Ireland and colleagues offer their country's side of the story by “Employing a composite gene-flow index to numerically quantify a crop's potential for gene flow: an Irish perspective.” Their article is published in Environmental Biosafety Research.

Researchers present a means to calculate the gene flow index (GFI) of a crop, and apply it to sugar beet, oilseed rape, potato, perennial ryegrass, maize, wheat, and barley. They also combine the four strands of gene flow to establish a baseline data set that describes the potential of Ireland's crops for both pollen and seed mediated gene flow. These are the crop pollen-to-wild relative (CPW); crop pollen-to-crop (CPC); crop seed-to-volunteer (CSV); and crop seed-to-feral (CSF).

Researchers found that oilseed rape, ryegrass, and sugar beet attained a high GFI value, but cautioned that such a value does not imply that the crops are not suitable for GM development, but have a higher propensity for gene flow and may require greater management precautions if efficient coexistence is to be attained.

Subscribers to Environmental Biosafety Research can access the complete article at www.edpsciences.org/articles/ebr/pdf/2005/01/ebr0418.pdf.

Source: CropBiotech Update