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This is a perfect example of the original article's conclusion: you simply don't know what you're talking about. You might be vaguely aware of hybrid vigor, wh
by Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
This is a perfect example of the original article's conclusion: you simply don't know what you're talking about.
You might be vaguely aware of hybrid vigor, which is of crucial importance for many crops, especially cereal crops, and is a major part of the 'green revolution'. Hybrid crops have driven much of the yield increases we've seen over the past several decades. This is due to a very specific phenomenon called heterosis, and is still fairly poorly understood but is known to be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. That is, it's not a magic combination of traits or more heterozygous loci, but a genome-wide phenomenon that affects gene expression in ways that are generally favorable to growth.
But! You're confusing this with sterile or semi-sterile inter-species hybrids like mules, or perhaps sterile triploids like banana. These are completely different phenomena that have nothing to do with 'hybrid corn'.
Corn of all kinds that see significant cultivation is perfectly fertile, Monsanto products included. What you don't get is any hybrid vigor in the F2 generation, only the F1. There's nothing about the IP or companies that make this the case, it's fucking biology. You can seed-save all you like, you won't run a farm like that because you won't make any money. Even if you aren't using transgenes (i.e. 'GMOs'), you'll still use seed made from directed crosses from parental lines known to produce hybrid vigor when crossed. Seed saving ended because of this, not some loony conspiracy about 'evil' seed companies.
One confounder: Terminator seed. This is a technology that does make F1 seed sterile. Oddly enough, this was done for reasons of environmental responsibility; if you make your transgene products terminate, the transgenes can't spread into the environment. Unfortunately this technology was never commercialized because of reactionaries like yourself.
As for genetic diversity, your impression has no basis in reality. Breeders have only become more zealous about gathering wild accessions to use in breeding programs, namely for disease resistance traits. These programs would be wildly more effective if, instead of back-crossing for many generations over many years, you could simply pop in the relevant loci in a transgene. But that's another foolish pipe dream due to the reactionaries.
Final point; you're aware traditional crops have just as much IP protection as transgene crops, right? Plant variety protections last in the 15-20 year range, are respected by most international treaties, and are ubiquitous in crop breeding, ornamental flower breeding, etc. Utility patents provide slightly different protections for transgene crops, but it's not much different. Those trendy apples or 'Sunshine raspberries' at the grocery store? 100% patented. Why is your trendy beer so expensive? Patented hops. It fucking boogles the mind that anyone thinks transgenes have a thing to do with this.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoThanks for the details, but you're kind of being a dick.
- gjs278 8y agothe guy who posted his incomplete knowledge is the actual dick
- yorwba 8y ago> What you don't get is any hybrid vigor in the F2 generation, only the F1. There's nothing about the IP or companies that make this the case, it's fucking biology. While that's true, it also happens to be economically convenient for the companies producing hybrid seeds, because they get recurring sales. So there's a lot of incentive to focus on finding new combinations to hybridize, while neglecting research on other options. After all, there's no guarantee that "hybrid vigor" actually improves the metrics humans care about (such as yield), rather than causing some other traits (such as leaf size) to be expressed stronger. So hybridization is just a different way to generate variants for selective breeding and a lot of its popularity is just due to the built-in DRM.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago> After all, there's no guarantee that "hybrid vigor" actually improves the metrics humans care about (such as yield), rather than causing some other traits (such as leaf size) to be expressed stronger. I can assure you in strongest terms that, yes, hybrid vigor is unique in this regard. 'Solving' hybrid vigor in a way that you can capture the benefits in a stable inbred is a multi-billion dollar innovation. The most innovation in breeding is happening in maize. It's responsible for the most high-throughput sequencing, the most automated greenhouse metrology, the most funding in general (esp. in China). About 10-15 years ago any plant biologist was basically guaranteed funding if they put the words 'epigenetics' and 'heterosis' in their grants. Everyone figured that the recent understanding in DICER, the plant RNA Pols, DNA methylation and histone modifications, etc. would lead to a solid working model of heterosis. It didn't happen. Every conceivable growth and yield trait in maize has been analyzed. The qTLS have been found, the regulatory elements mapped, the chromatin environment understood, etc. It's very difficult to explain how well maize has been studied; in many ways the field is vastly ahead of any other model despite the absurd difficulty of doing genomics in such a repetitive and large genome. The notion that leaf width/area hasn't been analyzed to death with regard to yield is laughable. Sidenote: the plant breeders have been wiping the floor with animal breeders because they naturally perform group selection in crop rows. Things like broad leaves are bad bad bad because they cost a lot and just end up shaded by their neighbors and higher leaves on the same plant. Animal breeders fail here and have been selecting for hyper-aggressive animals that fight and stress everything to all hell, much to their detriment. The fact is that heterosis matters, and any high-performance inbred will be beat by even a moderate-performing hybrid by any reasonable metric.