New safety research projects on GM crops

Key focus: Limiting the dispersal ability of transgenic crops in oilseed rape and maize

The potential use of transgenic plants containing new or modified substances raises new issues for biological safety research. In particular when plants are to be used to produce functional foods or for the production of industrial or pharmaceutical materials, it is important that they do not spread uncontrollably. Against this background, systems are being developed and tested that are designed to limit the spread of genetically modified plants. These involve biological approaches, such as male sterility, and alternative methods of transferring foreign genes, such as plastid transformation. Plastids are small independent units in the cell plasma of plants that have their own DNA and can express it in proteins. Unlike the DNA in the cell nucleus, the plastid DNA is not passed on via pollen. If plastids are used as carriers of new genes, the new genetic information can be biologically confined within the plant.

A separate research focus is on limiting the spread of oilseed rape via volunteer rape. Rape seeds can survive for long periods in the soil, reappearing as volunteer rape in subsequent crops and leading to an unintentional spread of the plants. By breeding low-persistence rape lines, it is hoped that the volunteer problem can be reduced.

Focus: Ecological impacts of Bt maize

A research network consisting of eight projects is focusing on the environmental impacts of a new type of Bt maize into which three different Bt genes have been transferred (stacked genes) making the maize resistant to its two main chewing pests, the European corn borer and the Western corn rootworm . The larvae of the European corn borer chew through the stem of the maize plant, while the Western corn rootworm larvae attack the roots. The corn borer has been gradually spreading across Germany from south to north for decades. The Western corn rootworm is a new pest in Europe and appeared in southern Germany for the first time in 2007.

Field trials will test whether the different Bt toxins expressed in the Bt maize plants influence or increase each other’s effects, thereby leading to negative environmental impacts.