Biotech Updates

Exeter Scientists Examine Role of Wind in GM Cross-Pollination

June 8, 2007

A research team from the School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, has recommended a new method for predicting the potential of cross-pollination between genetically modified (GM) and conventional crops. The method takes into account wind speed and direction to predict the movement of pollen in the air. Their study shows huge variation in the amount of cross-pollination between GM and non-GM crops of maize, oilseed rape, rice and sugar beet. Levels vary according to whether the GM field is upwind or downwind of the non-GM field given the direction of the prevailing wind over the flowering period of the crop. This model of pollen dispersal in the wind can be used to devise minimum distances between GM and conventional crop that minimize cross-pollination.

Readers can access the article at http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/newscrop.shtml.