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jensjoy t1_iujpf3i wrote

Reply to comment by VinylJitsu in eli5: What makes a product Non-GMO? by DecafWriter

>unable to produce fertile seeds

Hasn't that already been done by selective breeding? Like bananas and Grapes?

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VinylJitsu t1_iujpyyf wrote

Bananas and grapes produce very few to no seeds at all. The specific example I gave, Round-up Ready soy beans, are seeds that grow plants that grow seeds that DON'T grow plants. In other words, you have to buy seeds from Monstanto every time you re-plant.

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jensjoy t1_iujrfkb wrote

>Bananas and grapes produce very few to no seeds at all.

Because we modified their genes with selective breeding. Unmodified banana.

>In other words, you have to buy seeds from Monstanto every time you re-plant.

That, too has also been done by selective breeding.

The point I obviously failed to make is that selective breeding and things like CRIPR aren't on different levels of modifications. Just other tools used.
That's why the debate about GMO, which afaik also considers selective breeding, isn't black and white but rather complicated.

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rhomboidus t1_iujqxbv wrote

> In other words, you have to buy seeds from Monstanto every time you re-plant.

Monsanto hasn't existed for a few years.

Realistically though you never replant from seeds, even for non-GMO crops. Pretty much everything commercially viable is hybridized, and that's only good for one generation.

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