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GMO's are not produced by targeted radiation in the way you have described, at least not as common practice (i.e. the GMO food you buy isn't created this way).
by larssorenson 5y ago
GMO's are not produced by targeted radiation in the way you have described, at least not as common practice (i.e. the GMO food you buy isn't created this way). GMO crops are generated in two ways: targeted gene modification (with deliberate modifications being made in contrast to the randomness of the radiation method you described) and crossbreeding (which has a more randomized effect but does not involve radiation).
If you look at the [Wikipedia article on genetic engineering techniques](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_techniques https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_techniqu...) radiation doesn't appear once.
- gregw134 5y agoCreating new crop varieties using radiation is a thing, here are some wiki articles discussing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding#New_mutagen_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding#New_mutagen_... I also remember seeing a news article about using radiation to breed new rice variants that have more nutrients, but I can't find it anymore.
- larssorenson 5y agoYou're right, it is done. I worded my comment carefully to leave room for this because it's hard to prove a negative, but I stand by my statement, specificay in refuting the implication from the original comment: we aren't haphazardly blasting plant genome with radiation, at scalr, and guessing it's safe enough to feed to the world. I don't have numbers but GMO crops today are by and large the result of non-radiation genetic engineering.