By Roxann Jelinek

University of Minnesota Master Gardener, Brown County

I just read an article in a gardening-type magazine that was intended to scare everyone. The article was labeled GMO, but all it described was selective breeding (making hybrids). GMO and selective breeding are not the same thing. I decided to do research (University of Minnesota and Michigan based and Minnesota Dept. of Agriculture). I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned, some interesting information, and some tools for assessing the information and misinformation in magazine articles and on the internet.

Technology can be an intimidating. Let’s start at the beginning, the history of plant breeding. Humans began changing the genetics of plants 10-12,000 years ago. By choosing the most palatable plants, and then the most robust of those, we began making intentional decisions about the genetic makeup of our food before we even knew what genes were. The fruits, grains and vegetables we eat now bear little resemblance to the crops we started cultivating years ago. Take corn for example: Corn started as a small grass called teosinte in southern Mexico. Teosinte has about a dozen small seeds in a rock hard shell. Evidence was found by archeologists that primitive corn was already under cultivation 8,700 years ago.

A familiar vegetable like broccoli does not appear until in the 6th century BC. The entire brassica family is because of human intervention on wild plants. Starting in the wild as mustard, it has been bred into cabbages, brussels sprouts, mustard greens, cauliflower, rapeseed (canola), turnips, rutabaga, collard  greens, bok choy, watercress, radish, wasabi and of course, broccoli.

Alexander the Great brought a wild dwarf apple from Kazakhstan to Europe. There it was bred from something close to a crab apple to become the big, sweet, juicy apple that we know today.

The intervention process sped up and intensified when an Austrian monk began systematically breeding pea pods in 1854. His discoveries set the stage for the highly targeted selective breeding that revolutionized modern agriculture. It’s hard to look at the increase in something like corn yields since the 1930’s and not be in awe of what plant breeders have accomplished. This was all done with selective breeding.

In the last 100 years, breeders have bred plants to improve the flavor, texture and to raise yields. They have also bred plants to tolerate drought, high temperatures, resist viruses, fungi and bacteria. They have bred plants to resist insects and other pests. They have bred plants to be taller, shorter, stronger stems, or have certain colors. They have done this through selecting the traits they want and cross breeding crops with plants that have those traits. Selective breeding.

Nature has a strategy that will surprise most people; resistance to insects and other pests. Did you know that many plants produce their own pesticides? About 99.99 percent of the chemicals humans ingest are natural. They are chemicals produced by plants that defend themselves against fungi, insects and animal predators. Figs, parsley and celery produce psoralen which is toxic to insects and fish. Potatoes, tomatoes, apples and okra produce solanine which protects against fungi and blight. Cassava produces cynanide which protects the root from being eaten by insects and animals.

Breeders know which traits they want their plants to exhibit. Today they know which genes are responsible for those traits. Technology is allowing them to get the desired genes, to produce the desired traits, into the plants with fewer steps, and greater precision. This is selective breeding…not GMOs.

What people refer to as Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, are crops bred with the most sophisticated breeding technology. Genetic modification happens when breeders take the specific trait that they want from one plant or organism and transfer it to another plant. Or it can be as simple as slightly changing how a single protein in a plant reacts, as in the case of the Arctic Apple which is an apple that has been bred to resist browning after it’s been cut. Instead of inserting a new gene, the breeders simply switched off the one responsible for the enzyme that causes apples to oxidize when peeled and cut. This is GMO.

GMO is exactly what is going on in an effort to save the world’s citrus supply from devastation. Citrus greening is a bacterial disease that affects citrus fruit. It destroys the vigor of the trees and turns the fruit bitter and salty. If you have noticed the rising cost of citrus, this disease is one of the reasons. Farmers have tried to hold the disease at bay by attacking the small bugs that carry the disease with more and more pesticides. As the bugs become resistant to the pesticide and more trees around the world become infected, a solution was desperately needed if we are going to continue to have oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruit. Fortunately, spinach contains a gene that makes it immune to this disease. After searching among many different solutions, plant scientists have successfully transferred the spinach protein into orange trees. You would never know the oranges have a gene from a spinach plant in them. You can see the advantages that genetic engineering brings to breeders and plant scientists.

This may not be a satisfying answer to the anxious person, but man has been changing food plants for a very long time. Selective breeding and plant genetics are evolving, most changes for the betterment of man. Again, selective breeding is not the same as GMO. When it comes to GMO seeds, there is no need to be concerned that you might unintentionally plant GMO seeds in your home vegetable garden. I could find no evidence of GMO seeds being sold to home gardeners. If you still have doubts, you have to ask questions and do a little research.