GMO-debate EFI 2005

 

 

The Annual Conference of EFI (European Forest Research Institute) decided on 8 September 2005 that EFI, being a leading European organization in the forestry research and networking, should initiate and lead a process to address relevant issues with respect to GM trees that may result in policies that research organizations, including EFI, can adopt.

A discussion forum for EFI members was been activated to serve this purpose at http://www.efi.fi/members/gmtrees/  at end of September 2005.

Dag Lindgren participated and tried to get other to participate. If was a frustrating experience to log in and get it working, that certainly contributed to low participation. There were 15 registered participants but no-one contributed to the discussion besides Dag Lindgren (at least not before late December 05). In beginning 2006 it stopped to work for Dag Lindgren also, and I found it of little use to participate when there were neither interested listeners nor people making comments. I have not got any feed back of any type from the arrangers of the discussion.

“Contributions made by Dag Lindgren”:

 

Genes suitable for studying genetics of transgenic constructs in the field

Commercialization of GMTrees is not in the foreseeable future. There is thus no reason the first long term field trials with GMTrees should focus on commercially important characters.  Rather they should have genetic systems which are easy to study (marker genes) and offer information on how genes affect trees beyond what can be learnt from controlled environments. The reason for field trials with GMTrees should be to understand and learn how to handle transgenics, not pre-commercial testing.

 

Exotics
The spreading of transgenic genes to native species can be eliminated by restricting the use of GM to exotics, which does not mix with native species. Scots pine, Norway spruce and Silver birch should when not be primary targets for transgenic breeding in Europe, while species like Douglas fir, Sitka spruce or lodgepole pine constitute more suitable targets. The exotics are used because they offer extra advantages and the GM-breeding will be synergistic to that, thus an extra bonus for the GMO! Self-spreading of exotics is usually regarded as not desirable; actions to prevent that are done anyway, and need thus not just be seen as an extra trouble with GMO for exotics.

Rotation time
If rotation time is shortened: 1) the needed test period will be shortened, 2) tree improvement will proceed more rapid, 3) the risk that long term disadvantages occur will be reduced, 4) the time distance from investment to economical return will be shorter, 5) if disadvantages become evident, the crop can be taken out faster and the economic damage will be lower, 6) shortened rotation time can probably be combined with that the crop never reach sexual maturity and thus the spreading problem will be reduced.

 

Appeal

For many trees injuries by animals is a major problem. Animals making damage to trees (e.g. moose, vole, rabbit) have feelings and psychology. Things can be more or less attractive and appealing. The injuries are associated with things like taste, feel and smell. It ought to be possible to apply GE for modifying a biochemical pathway so something with unattractive taste or smell develops in a way which interferes minimally with other aspects of the trees life or interactions with its environment. In that way GE may be the most environmental friendly solution to a tree propagation problem.

 

A gene command language
I suggest developing a “program language” for controlling genes. A standard package is inserted in all trees. The package has a sensor, which can feel a signal from outside and respond by an executive order to the DNA-package in the tree. Consider an insecticide. All trees carry a gene which produces an insecticide within the package, but it is normally silent. But by e.g. a laser signal from a satellite or mast in the plantation the gene is switched on if an insect attack is diagnosed and the gene makes the insecticide. But only exact when and exact where it is needed. When the insecticide is not needed anymore, a new instruction is sent to the sensor and the gene is switched off again. It would be wonderful environmental management with an internal insecticide, which is only produced exactly when and where it is needed. That standard package could also contain the FTgene, which can switch on syntheses of FTmRNA (“florigen”) for inducing flowering. When sexual reproduction is needed on trees for tree improvement or seed orchard production, the gene is switched on. But normally it is silent meaning that tree growth is not disturbed by unneeded flowering.

 

Chinese GMO

A link about the state of the only GMtree operation in the world which has reached a semi-commercial scale:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6402

 

Finnish GMO

Seven years ago Finland established two outdoor experiments with transgenic Silver birch. These plantations were the only plantations in the world with GM trees adapted to outdoor life in northern Scandinavia. Today these experiments are gone. An experiment close to Helsinki was abandoned because the land was more needed for other purposes. An experiment at Punkaharju was vandalized.

The field trial belonging to the Finnish Forest Research Institute with Silver birch was destroyed June 18-21, 2004. The trial destroyed was located on the northern side of the Savonlinna-Punkaharju road. All of the nearly 400 seedlings planted in the fenced and locked site of 2000 square meters were broken off or ripped from the ground. The financial value of the trial was at least 100 000 Euros, not mentioning the several years of work by many people. The Mikkeli unit of Central Criminal Police was investigating the act. Although many think they know who did it, there are no proofs and no actions taken by police.

Some of the birches in this five year old trial were transgenic. The genetic constitution of the plants had been modified regarding an enzyme responsible for the fixation of carbon dioxide. The primary purposes of the trial were the environmental and ecological effects of genetically modified forest trees and the permanence of the transferred genes. There is little information on such issues and the need for multidisciplinary environmental research is widely recognized. These questions could have been examined with the aid of this field trial. The GM research is carried out under permission and it was monitored by the Finnish Board of Gene Technology.

When the Finnish Forest Research Institute reported the vandalism to the police, local greenies reciprocated by reporting the Finnish Forest Research Institute to the police, not only for unsafe management of the site, but also for unreported material in this field experiment. The police did not react to these claims. The board of gene technology told that the experiment was fully legal and well managed.

It seems experiments with GM-trees at known localities constitute a probable target for ecoterrorist attacks. The activists destroyed a trial with GM-potatoes 2005 (Jokioinen?), probably in lack of forest trials. Perhaps the potato had starch meant for pulp industry (it is very doubtful they would buy it for green certificate reasons), so it may have been close to the target if that was forestry. Twisted Evil But more likely it was GMO in general…

Biotechnicians at Joensuu plan new experiments with gene modified birches. Brave Finland has sisu and does not give up easily!! There the Forest Research Institute and Helsinki University failed, will now Joensuu University show that GM Trees in the Nature can become a reality again!

This story focusing on GMTrees close to EFI in Joenssu struck me as relevant for the GM Tree Forum. May be someone knows more or can correct details of this Finnish story.

 

EU statistics
Below is statistics for the release of GMtrees outdoors in the European Union.

Year Release permits
1993 2
1994 1
1995 3
1996 3
1997 2
1998 1
1999 2
2000 3

There is no raising trend in GMO outdoors experiments over the period 1995 to 2000. For all plants together in EU the number of GMO outdoors trials has sunk by a factor 3 over the last decade.

It would be interesting to have more information on the experiments, e.g. how many were abandoned prematurely because of shortcomings in experimental techniques or sabotage, how many fulfilled expectations, how many resulted in scientific papers, and how old the field experiments really become in years and share of a normal rotation time, and also how many still remains in the field. Collection of such a statistics could be one target for EFI, if EFI wants to be involved in GMO research at all.

As much knowledge of GMO has accumulated over the past decade, it seems justified to increase the field experimentation, to take the step from the lab out to the reality. We need to know more about how transgenic genes and gene constructs function and are controlled in the open in long lived trees. Trees mature and may develop differently than in the lab. Trees have annual growth cycles. It is actually very surprising that a shift to more field experiments has not happened to a larger extent before.

 

 

More release statistics from EU

Material from Fenning T 2003 Nature 21:360, there was GMO statistics for EU.

Statistics is based on statistics from  //engl.jrc.it

The number of experiments with trees are slightly larger than the list by BigTree, this probably reflects a wider definition of trees in the table below (eg. apple trees or experiments with just release of just GMO pollen for controlled pollination). It happens that applications cover several sites and species. Many trials remain in field for several years.

 

GM field trials within the EU

Year

All plants

Trees

1990

0

0

1991

4

0

1992

86

0

1993

89

2

1994

166

1

1995

213

5

1996

239

6

1997

264

3

1998

244

7

1999

238

4

2000

129

4

2001

88

2

2002

35

1

2003

 

 

2004

 

 

 

The impact of many genes on plant phenotype can only be evaluated under field conditions that are difficult to mimic in the laboratory. The negative effects of this trend on woody plants biology in Europe will continue to be felt for many years to come.

 

Releases of trees are seldom made by commercial organizations. It is mainly an effect of the green movement, e.g. forest companies cannot get green certification if they deal with GMO. Thus it is important that research organizations do the field work.

 

Rules for GM Trees

For most countries there exists a set of legal rules for GM Trees controlling their use. The rules and conditions have been discussed in many bodies and wide participation and for several decades. Usually the thought behind the rules is to permit their use, both in laboratory, outside the laboratory and for commercialization. Thus EFI is suggested not to challenge that GM tree research is allowed under the current and local legal rules and conditions. There may be details which could be modified, but this seems too technical and detailed an issue for a large international body to interfere with. The largest problem with GM-Trees is in public perception, not in the rules themselves.


For indoors GM trees, the activity is considerable and experience is accumulating fast and there are a number of studies concerned with the risks, which can contribute to discussion about rules. Thus I suggest modifying and possible relaxing some of the rules could be an issue to rise within five years but not by EFI.

 
Outdoors testing and experimenting are currently allowed in many countries (with the proper permits). This was the result of an extended, detailed and painful debate. Compared with the actual use, the GM trees get a disproportionate amount of attention and legal documents. To get a basis for modifying the current rules and discuss practical applications, the most critical is experience from actual field testing. There exist a sufficient number of tests run for a sufficient time before it can be justified to change the rules. In Europe this is not the case; more field experience must be accumulated before rules change (see the Finnish case and EUcase placed as separate topics). The reason for the low number of field experiments is unlikely to be that the rules themselves are forbiddingly restricting. Thus no changes in regulations seem justified in the foreseeable future.

 

Support outdoor GM Tree testing Razz
In the long run intelligent design (GMO) must be superior to Darwinian trial and error (conventional breeding).  Therefore GM Trees will take over if there will be any improved trees in the far future at all. But this is a long process, which requires long term experiences from the field, at least if we think about species most important for northern Europe today. Long here means centuries rather than decades.

 

First we must know more about the genetic control mechanisms in natural conditions. The regulatory mechanisms under outdoors conditions need to be better understood. An individual tree life includes variable conditions. There are many repeated cycles with vegetation periods and rest period. The tree starts as a juvenile and matures to an adult. Different trees have more different and less predictable life-stories than agricultural crops. What happens can not be reliable predicted from indoor experiments. Trees grow and acclimatize outdoors for many years and it is desirable the genetic control of that is better understood to be more able to engineer the genome to get superior trees. The first GM trees grown in long term field tests under natural conditions should not aim for testing the function of economically important characters, but just how genes and in particular transgenic gene packages behave under natural conditions.

 

As trees grow outdoors and are long lived new designs must be tested for a long time. The test requirement is longer the newer the design is (most of rotation time) under realistic conditions outdoors. Genes may not work in the open as foreseen from theory and labs. The regulatory mechanisms under outdoors conditions need to be understood. The safety designs for field testing need to be developed based on field tests and verified (like the degree of sterility). To ever take the step to commercial use in some future, it must be supported by tests with some similarity to forests.

 

First after getting better basic knowledge how genes work outdoors and more experience on how to manage GM Tree field experiments, it is time to think on what genes or genetic systems are suitable for commercializing. These first pre-commercial field tests also require a lot of long-term field testing under variable conditions.

I know about three GMO trials in northern Europe where talking about field trials may be relevant (the two Finnish are described in another topic, I do not include some fruit trees). All three trials were abandoned prematurely. The reasons were climatic damage; vandalism; and higher priorities for land use. That seems to show that there were shortcomings in experimental lay-out. In whole Europe there seems to have been only some 15 field experiments (most of them may be abandoned now). The rate of new field tests entering the statistics declines. There are much more field testing in the Americas. Europe lags behind in the field and Europe should rely on some own experience with own species and own environmental and administrative conditions. Europe needs some own competence in growing GM trees outdoors and should not be dependent on the US in this respect. It has also a value that GMO workers and enthusiasts have some contact with realities outside the lab. As it is so long-term, the immediate value is not obvious, and field tests are not encouraged for green certification, thus commercial forest companies are unlikely to support it. The push must come from research organizations which can be more long-sighted and need not motivate by an economic return in the foreseeable future. If long term testing is not reactivated, the large investment in indoors know-how will be mainly lost for commercial forestry.

 

Discourage indoor GM Tree work!! Sad
Needless to say GMO is a powerful research tool which should be utilized for many purposes.

 

Example of problems are: 1) GM trees strangle other fields; 2) GM trees get a monopoly of interest; 3) GM Trees focus tree scientists at lab work instead of outdoors forests; 4) GM Trees are often closely linked to commercialism in a way raising suspicions; 5) GM Trees do not benefit slow growing boreal European forests in particular but the benefits will come in warmer areas; 6) The suspicion against GM Trees is larger in Europe than elsewhere in the world, and the needed field tests take longer time, thus possible commercialization will occur late in Europe; 7) GM Trees are not without its dangers.

So EFI should brake and at least reduce the speed of the transgenic explosion in Europe.  

The main benefits of GM trees do not lay in Europe!
The boreal forests in Northern Europe should be in the focus of EFI because of their economic significance. They are characterized by long rotation times, semi-natural conditions, and low management intensity. Especially long testing times are required to introduce radically new methods in northern Europe. Radical new methods do not easily get public acceptance. It is easier to foresee practical utilization of GM trees in more intensive forestry with shorter rotation times under established and publicly accepted tree farming conditions. Thus the GM tree research will not benefit the competitive edge for the forests and forestry of Europe. Thus EFI should not set lab work with GM trees as a priority!

Let agriculture or model species keep the edge
Practical applications will come decades earlier in agriculture than in forestry. The public acceptance is larger for agriculture than forestry, at least European forestry should wait till GMO is more established and accepted in agriculture. Do not spend too much research funding on trying to do the same things with forest trees as agriculturists can do more easily with agricultural crops. Let the agriculturists make the expensive mistakes and find the most promising paths before following into forestry. If the main focus is basic, model species like Arabidopsis are easier to work with than any crops, but when it is not a matter for EFI.

The molecular bang out competes others
This must be evident for all well informed observers. The phenomenon is illustrated by a citation from "diversity" (=mangfold, a Nordic newsletter including forestry issues, February 2005 issue) "When the Swedish forest gene bank was established in 1980, it received about seven times more funding per year than today. The gene bank probably shares this fate with most other activities, that in a distant past enjoyed political support. This support, however, gradually decreased as new issues came into focus, even if nobody directly dares to say that the ’old’ issues are no longer important. The issue of GMO is an example of a futuristic activity that has received lots of attention. GMO, demanding more resources and considered by the Swedish Forestry Board to represent a greater development potential than gene banks, can be said to have contributed to out competing gene banks."
Another example is that GMO is the only subject where international bodies like EFI and FAO have cared to make scientific IT debates about.
The most serious aspect may be that too many molecular GMO specialists are trained and too few which can manage other aspects of breeding and genetics. Professors love to train doctorands or scholars from developing countries. These people grow up to demand machines requiring still larger resources and focusing the activities they are working in to fit to their training, and are less well adapted to the real jobs needed.

GMO causes a loss in production and decreases the efficiency of breeding
Agriculture GMO is used very sparsely in Europe, in forestry GMO is not at all and will not be so in the foreseeable future. But still, for the last decades the GMO dream has consumed a lot of resources, which could have been used for more practical breeding instead. It that had been done the crops would have been better today and in the next decades. In some perverse way GMO has been a focus for commercialism in a bad sense. It is surrounded by lots of patents, know-how, commercial fights and efforts to keep things a business secret, which will make it very complicated to really get a profitable end product. The identity and verification of the end product as well as safety considerations consume more resources. But still the futuristic dream has unfairly easy to attract governmental innovation sponsoring as well as retirement funds investments.

Terrorism
We are all aware of what unpleasant things malicious code can do in our computers. The awareness seems less of the potential to do similar things with biological life. Computers are 100% Man controlled and can easily be disconnected. Man's ability to control life is more limited, and the problems to disconnect Life are larger than computers. The molecular biology develops very fast. It will be possible for more and more individual lab chiefs with less and less resources to construct and implement intentionally disastrous code. The scientific environments are global and knowledge spreads uncontrolled. In the same time GMO is guarded with commercial secrets, facilitating to act in the hidden. This risk is unavoidable and I am not much for policing. But at least GMO need not be oversold and overused just because it is fancy and futuristic. Its use could be somewhat reduced at no loss for anyone (except the concerned scientists) and that would lead to a slight reduction in risk.

 

GMO in EU

Material from Fenning T 2003 Nature 21:360, there was GMO statistics for EU.

Statistics is based on statistics from  //engl.jrc.it

The number of experiments with Trees are slightly larger than the list by BigTree, this probably reflects a wider definition of trees in the table below (eg. apple trees or experiments with just release of just GMO pollen for controlled pollination). It happens that applications cover several sites and species. Many trials remain in field for several years.

 

GM field trials within the EU

Year

All plants

Trees

1990

0

0

1991

4

0

1992

86

0

1993

89

2

1994

166

1

1995

213

5

1996

239

6

1997

264

3

1998

244

7

1999

238

4

2000

129

4

2001

88

2

2002

35

1

2003

 

 

2004

 

 

 

The impact of many genes on plant phenotype can only be evaluated under field conditions that are difficult to mimic in the laboratory. The negative effects of this trend on woody plants biology in Europe will continue to be felt for many years to come.

 

Releases of trees are seldom made by commercial organizations. It is mainly an effect of the green movement, e.g. forest companies cannot get green certification if they deal with GMO. Thus it is important that research organizations do the field work.

 

 

 

 

One participant in the GMO debate

“I got some more invitations to check my personal messages at the GMO discussion site but I am still not able to log in no matter what.  I've given up.”