From Rajasthan to Haryana, a pest is wreaking havoc on GM Bt cotton fields. Damage due to the pink bollworm is more widespread and serious than ever before. As farmers stare at losses, some say they will give up cotton farming. Indian Express (paywalled)

 

 

100% of the corn planted in Mexico City is free of GMOs. They know it's GMO-free because they screen it to ensure the seeds don’t have any trace of GMOs. During Mexico’s National Corn Day, protesters proclaimed: “We are from corn, not GMOs!” Mexico has more than 300 varieties of corn derived from 64 native races. La Prensa (Spanish text)

 

 

During Mexico's National Corn Day, a letter was delivered to the US ambassador saying: instead of trying to make Mexico accept GMO corn, “Your govt would do well to encourage the production of non-GMO corn, which could improve the health of its own population.” Imagen Agropecuaria (Spanish text)

 

 

The German federally owned Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) has bred a fungus-resistant apple that has now been approved as a variety. The new variety Pia41 resists scab fungi that have already broken through the resistance of other varieties. The breeding success was achieved without genetic modification, through conventional crossing. Meanwhile the genetic engineers are not making any progress. As early as 2011, researchers at the Dutch University of Wageningen began field trials with apples of the Gala variety, into which they had incorporated the Rvi6 gene. According to the genetic engineering-friendly platform transgen.de, the trials ran until 2021. It doesn't say why they were stopped after that and the plants were never marketed, but it seems obvious: Conventionally bred scab-resistant varieties had long since been cultivated and the fungus was already able to overcome the Rvi6 gene. This is why there are currently no GM scab-resistant apples on the market. Informationsdienst Gentechnik; English translation via GMWatch

 

 

Anne Petermann of the Global Justice Ecology Project, which campaigns against GM American chestnut trees, joined Lois and Denis Melican of the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation in early September to plant blight-resistant wild American chestnuts. The ACCF has been breeding naturally blight-resistant wild American chestnuts for more than 60 years. The ACCF rejects the effort to genetically engineer blight resistance into American chestnuts, pointing to their work to breed wild American chestnuts with natural blight resistance. They also point out that genetically engineered American chestnuts could contaminate and displace wild American chestnuts. Global Justice Ecology Project

 

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