Non-GMO Plant Breeding Techniques :: Food Agriculture Science Papers

Non-GMO Plant Breeding TechniquesWorks Cited Missing submissionIn 1997 genetically modified foods were introduced to commercial agriculture in the ground level of herbicide resistant soybean root (Farnham, Wang, and Wisner 2000). The seven years since allow marked a major change in the way large number worldwide look at food and its ware. It has become an important thin for farmers, consumers, the government and world economies, as the safety and ethics of GMOs are debated. In response to the use of GMOs, and the overall distrust many consumers have toward them, thither has been an explosion in the marketing of organic foods. All this talk to the highest degree genetically modified foods and the increasing popularity of organic foods brings to the forefront an important question. How much do we know about the outturn of non-GMO/organic crops and can it be considered safer and more ethically sound in comparison to GMO plant production? Historical Plant ProductionThroughout h istory crop production has been an ongoing process of altering the genotype of plants to improve their yield. It has been traditional for farmers aft(prenominal) every season to harvest chance uponds from the plants that appear phenotypically quality, saving them to be planted the following season. After thousands of years of doing this food crops today are a far cry from the wild lineages they were derived from (Chrispeels and Sadava pg331). While wild lineages have undergone centuries upon centuries of innate selection producing successive generations of offspring adapted to the environment, domesticated species have undergone the pressures of fall selection. This results in observable differences between domesticated plants and their wild relatives. Todays crop plants have no natural seed dispersal mechanisms, nor seed dormancy periods to overcome seasonal weather conditions. Crop plants have been bred for confusable growth habits so that at the time of harvest they are o f like shape and size (Kimball, 2000). This is the reason for example that we do not see shrubby corn or viney wheat varieties. Congruency of this type among crop species has make it easier for farmers to develop universal harvest mechanisms. Gigantism is the term given to the spacious difference in the size of the fruiting bodies of crop plants versus wild relatives, which is collect to the selection of the seed from parent plants that produce large fruits (Chrispeels and Sadava pg342). In the 1700s people began to cross plants with the intention of making crop plant varieties superior to those in existence, as opposed to the traditional and more passive mode of hand picking seeds from superior plants.