From: Kai Becker (kmb@kai-m-becker.de)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 02:02:12 MST
Am Mittwoch, 5. Februar 2003 19:21 schrieb Damien Broderick:
> <While the foreign gene infected one seed in 16,000, only one seed in
> about 10,000 made it to a neighbouring non-GM field. This was a total
> rate of one seed in 160 million, he said. >
>
> I don't know how many seeds get sown in any given planting season. I
> can imagine it might be more than that.
In 1999, the area uses for GM wheat in the US was 9.8e6ha (980,000km^2).
If we only assume 1 straw per 5*5cm (ca. 2*2in), we get 400e6 straws per
km^2, giving a total of 392e12 plants (only US, only 1999, only GM wheat).
==> 392e12 / 160e6 = 2,450,000 possible infection in 1999. Maybe we could
reduce the probability to leave the own field (1/10,000) by a factor of
another 100 or 1000 for very large fields, but even that would have
produced 2450 outside infections of GM wheat in that year in the US, best
case.
Combined with GM soybeans, cotton, etc. and multiplied by the years since
introduction, this would mean several 10,000s infections already having
happened in the US alone.
Kai
-- == Kai M. Becker == kmb@kai-m-becker.de == Bremen, Germany == "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced"
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