Genes from a biotech turf grass have spread as much as 13 miles from a test plot --- a discovery that confirms the ability of altered traits to spread great distances into the wild on wind-borne pollen.
Scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency say there should be a full-scale environmental review because of the risk of herbicide-resistant traits spreading from the genetically engineered grass --- developed for golf courses --- to undesirable grasses or weeds. At least two other federal agencies have echoed that concern.
Critics of genetic engineering say the discovery warrants an immediate halt to open-air tests of the herbicide-resistant creeping bentgrass now being conducted by the Scotts Co. in central Oregon.
"The EPA has shown the genetically engineered bentgrass will contaminate numerous related species over vast areas and prove to be completely uncontrollable," says Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Washington-based Center for Food Safety.
Other studies of genetically engineered crops have suggested that wind-blown pollen can transport modified genes short distances, but the new report is the first to show that it can travel many miles.
Scotts, one of the country's leading lawn care companies, has for several years grown its experimental grass on several hundred acres of test fields around Madras, Ore.
Both the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have voiced concern about the possible spread of herbicide-resistant traits from golf course grass to related species of perennial invasive weeds that would also be able to resist weed-killing chemicals.
Bob Harriman, Scotts vice president for biotechnology, says the firm isn't surprised or alarmed by the EPA's findings. He acknowledges that, under the right circumstances, the wind could distribute engineered grass pollen even more than the 13 miles documented by EPA.
He says the company will proceed, in collaboration with the Monsanto Co., to develop a variety of bentgrass that will enable golf courses to use Monsanto's Round-Up herbicide for weed control. By reducing overall chemical use, he says, the new bentgrass "would be a significant benefit to golf courses and society."
An estimated 11,000 U.S. golf courses currently have bentgrass greens or fairways. Harriman says frequent mowing would reduce the chances that any genetically engineered grass would grow up to release its errant pollen.
But Craig Culp of the Center for Food Safety says the large area over which the modified pollen spread --- and its ability to "outcross," or transfer herbicide-resistant traits to other species --- is clear evidence that agricultural biotech crops need tighter regulation.
"Grasses evolved to spread their pollen far and wide," he says. "Grass pollen is so fine that it's carried like smoke on the wind. And once it's out there, your can't get it back."
Culp says wheat --- a crop which has also been engineered for herbicide resistance --- is another grass-like plant that has the potential to spread potentially harmful traits over large distances. After several years of testing, Monsanto announced earlier this year that it was suspending efforts to commercialize a variety of herbicide-resistant wheat.
Although turf grass and wheat remain experimental crops, farmers have been adopting other genetically modified crops in a big way.
This year, U.S. farmers planted 106 million acres of biotech crops. Genetically modified varieties now make up 85 percent of all soybeans planted in the country, 45 percent of all corn, and 76 percent of all cotton.
Despite swift adoption of the technology, only a few problems with errant "gene flow" have been reported, in part because the pollen from the most widely used crops spreads less easily.
Two years ago, Texas-based ProdiGene Inc. was ordered to destroy 155 acres of corn in an Iowa field thought to have been contaminated by experimental corn in an adjoining plot that had been engineered to produce a pharmaceutical ingredient.
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution