Approval Requested For A GMO Apple :shock:

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tex
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Approval Requested For A GMO Apple :shock:

Post by tex »

Hi All,

A Canadian company has petitioned the USDA, requesting approval for a genetically modified apple that will not turn brown so soon after slicing.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... 0b03aff34c

Tex
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It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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Post by Rosie »

Tex that story takes me back to my daughter's science fair project when she was in third grade. At that time we lived in upstate New York, probably the apple capital of the country with hundreds of varieties around, and lots of old orchards. I was always buying some old variety to try at the farm markets and noticed that some varieties turned brown so slowly that you hardly noticed, while others turned brown real fast. My daughter had noticed this too, and so I helped her put together a little experiment where she timed the speed at which the different varieties turned brown, and also compared a fast-browning apple dipped in lemon juice with a one without. She made some simple graphs, plus learned about the enzymes in apples and set up her display. I couldn't believe that she actually came in second in the whole fair, as it wasn't as "showy" as some of the other entries. But then again, it looked like like a third grader had actually done it, not the mom of the third grader! (although at that age they do need some guidance).

So obviously the genes to produce a slow-browning apple are available in the apple gene-pool, and it wouldn't be that hard to produce a slow-browning apple variety using traditional breeding methods. The tools are available to develop a new variety much faster than before by using marker-assisted selection of the very young plants without having to wait 3 or 4 years until they get big enough to produce fruit to evaluate.

Rosie
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time………Thomas Edison
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tex
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Post by tex »

Rosie,

I fully agree, and if the people at USDA in charge of considering this request know even a tenth as much about apples as your daughter did when she was in the third grade, they will recognized that option, and rule accordingly. We'll see if they know as much as a third grader.

Thanks for sharing that insight.

Tex
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It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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Post by starfire »

tex wrote:
I fully agree, and if the people at USDA in charge of considering this request know even a tenth as much about apples as your daughter did when she was in the third grade, they will recognized that option, and rule accordingly.
I was having almost the same thoughts reading Rosie's post. They are bound to make it very complicated and as unnatural as possible.

Love, Shirley
When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber"
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