Co-existence with GM crops: grasses, clover and fodder beet

Summary

Co-existence with GM crops: grasses, clover and fodder beet
In 2006 the global cultivation of genetically modified crops increased with 13% and reached 102 million hectares. The GM crops cultivated are mainly soybean, maize, cotton and oilseed rape, but other modified crops are appearing, e.g. in 2006 herbicide tolerant alfalfa was commercialized in US. Also in Europe, GM crop cultivation is increasing with the largest areas in Rumania and Spain followed by Portugal, France, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia. To ensure that farmers and consumers can choose freely what food they want to grow and eat, national co-existence rules are now being fixed by law.
The measures to keep GM crops and NON-GM crops separated will be crop specific, because the potential for gene dispersal differ among the species. Among the fodder crops, grasses from the genera Lolium (rye-grass), Festuca (fescue) and Poa (meadow-grass) that are outcrossing and wind pollinated will needed strong control measures to ensure co-existence. This is probably also the case for species of clover (Trifolium) that are outcrossing, insect pollinated and may have vegetative propagation and longevity of seeds in the soil seed bank. The fodder beet (Beta vulgaris) on the other hand seems to be a crop, where co-existence can easily be achieved.
This contribution will present results from Lolium perenne, Trifolium repens and Beta vulgaris on field experiments and mathematic modeling of gene dispersal; in the field experiments dispersal was analyzed using DNA marker techniques. Based on the results we discuss the steps necessary to ensure co-existence with GM varieties of these fodder crops.