I would bet that mutated plants created via this "atomic" method are statistically much safer than GMO plants, in the sense that it's much more likely to have u

I would bet that mutated plants created via this "atomic" method are statistically much safer than GMO plants, in the sense that it's much more likely to have unintended consequences with GMO plants. For instance, when BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) genes were first added to corn for their insecticidal properties, nobody realized that large numbers of monarch butterflies would be killed by corn pollen, but it happened. This type of consequence would be very unlikely with induced-mutation plants. On the flip side, you can generally get much more pronounced results with GMOs. It's like the difference between a bow and arrow and a machine gun -- the machine gun is more effective, but easier to kill yourself with.