Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:08:46.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transgene escape in sugar beet production fields: data from six years farm scale monitoring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2007

Henri Darmency ,
Yves Vigouroux ,
Thierry Gestat De Garambé ,
Marc Richard-Molard  and
Claude Muchembled
Henri Darmency
Affiliation:
Unité Mixte de Recherche sur la Biologie et la Gestion des Adventices, INRA, BP 86510, 21065 Dijon, France
Yves Vigouroux
Affiliation:
Unité Mixte de Recherche Génome et Diversité des Plantes Cultivées, IRD, BP 64501, 34091 Montpellier, France
Thierry Gestat De Garambé
Affiliation:
Institut Technique de la Betterave, 45 rue de Naples, 75008 Paris, France Present address: Bayer CropScience France, 10 rue Jean Giono, 21000 Dijon, France
Marc Richard-Molard
Affiliation:
Institut Technique de la Betterave, 45 rue de Naples, 75008 Paris, France
Claude Muchembled
Affiliation:
Institut Technique de la Betterave, 45 rue de Naples, 75008 Paris, France

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Concerns have been raised in Europe about the efficiency, sustainability, and environmental impact of the first genetically modified crops. The committees and regulators in charge of approving procedures have encouraged a field trial approach for safety assessment studies under current agronomic conditions. We describe the gene flow from sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) in a multi-year and multi-crop monitoring study on farmers' fields at two locations that has been carried out since 1995. We analyzed two sugar beet lines that have been genetically transformed for herbicide resistance. One sugar beet has resistance to glufosinate and the other to glyphosate. Large differences among lines, years and locations were observed. These differences provided a broad range of situations to estimate the risks. Sugar beet bolters produced the majority (86%) of the herbicide-resistant seeds harvested in the field. Direct pollen flow from sugar beet bolters to weed beets that were growing within the same field as well as in a neighboring field that was left fallow accounted for only 0.4% of the resistant seeds released over the years and locations. Descendants of the hybrids between the sugar beet and the weed beet produced the remaining 13.6% of resistant seeds. Herbicide-resistant seeds from the progeny of the weed beet were recorded up to 112 m away from the closest transgenic pollen donor. Indications were observed of non-randomness of the weed beet producing resistant progeny. We also analyzed pollen flow to male-sterile bait plants located within and outside of the sugar beet field. Herbicide-resistant pollen flow was recorded up to 277 m, and fitted with an inverse power regression. Using sugar beet varieties with no, or very low, sensitivity to bolting and destroying bolters are two necessary measures that could delay gene flow.

Keywords

transgeneherbicide resistancepollen flowfarm-scalesugar beetBeta vulgaris
Type
Research Article
Information
Environmental Biosafety Research , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 2007 , pp. 197 - 206
Copyright
© ISBR, EDP Sciences, 2007

References

Alibert B, Sellier H, Souvré A (2005) A combined method to study gene flow from cultivated sugar beet to ruderal beets in the glasshouse and open field. Europ. J. Agro. 23: 195-208 CrossRef
Andersen NS, Siegismund HR, Meyer V, Jorgensen RB (2005) Low level of gene flow from cultivated beets (Beta vulgaris L. ssp. vulgaris) into Danish populations of sea beet (Beta vulgaris L. ssp. maritima (L.) Arcangeli). Mol. Ecol. 14: 1391-1405 CrossRef
Archimowitsch A (1949) Control of pollination in sugar-beet. Bot. Rev. 15: 613-628 CrossRef
Bateman AJ (1947) Contamination of seed crops II. Wind pollination. Heredity 1: 235-246 CrossRef
Boudry P, Mörchen M, Saumitou-Laprade P, Vernet P, Van Dijk H (1993) The origin and evolution of weed beets: consequences for the breeding and release of herbicide-resistant transgenic sugar beets. Theor. Appl. Genet. 87: 471-478 CrossRef
Dark SOS (1971) Experiments on the cross-pollination of sugar beet in the field. J. Natl. Inst. Agric. Bot. 12: 242-266
Darmency H, Klein E, Gestat de Garambé T, Gouyon P-H, Richard-mollard M, Muchembled C (submitted) Pollen dispersal in sugar beet production fields. Theor. Appl. Genet.
Ford-Lloyd BV, Hawkes JG (1986) Weed beets: their origin and classification. Acta Hort. 182: 399-401 CrossRef
Free JB, Williams IH, Longden PC, Jonhson MG (1975) Insect pollination of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) seed crops. Ann. Appl. Biol. 81: 127-134
Hornsey KG, Arnold MH (1979) The origins of weed beet. Ann. Appl. Biol. 92: 279-285
Johnson RT, Burtch LM (1959) The problem of wild annual sugar beets in California. J. Amer. Soc. Sugar Beet Technol. 10: 311-317
Longden PC (1974) Sugar beet as a weed. In Brighton Crop Protection Conference – Weeds, BCPC, Farnham, UK, pp 301-308
Madsen KH (1994) Weed management and impact on ecology of growing glyphosate tolerant sugarbeets (Beta vulgaris L.). Ph.D. thesis. Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Copenhagen, DK, p 62
May M (2004) Weed beet: the hidden menace. Brit. Sugar Beet Rev. 72: 18-21
Messéan A (1997) Management of herbicide tolerant crops in Europe. In Brighton Crop Protection Conference – Weeds, BCPC, Farnham, UK, pp 947-954
Perarnaud V, Souverain F, Prats S, Dequiedt B, Fauchere J, Richard-Molard M (2001) Influence du climat sur le phénomène de montée à graine de la betterave : synthèse. http ://www.itbfr.org (accessed May 19, 2006)
Saeglitz C, Pohl M, Bartsch D (2000) Monitoring gene flow from transgenic sugar beet using cytoplasmic male-sterile bait plants. Mol. Ecol. 9: 2035-2040 CrossRef
Savitsky VF (1954) Inheritance of the number of flowers in flower clusters of Beta vulgaris L. Proc. Amer. Soc. Sugar Beet Tech. 8: 3-15
Sester, M, Dürr, C, Darmency, H, Colbach, N (2007) Modelling the effects of cropping systems on the seed bank evolution and the emergence of weed beet. Ecol. Model. 204: 47-58 CrossRef
Squire GR, Brooks DR, Bohan DA, Champion GT, Daniels RE, Haughton AJ, Hawes C, Heard MS, Hill MO, May MJ, Osborne JL, Perry JN, Roy DB, Woiwod IP, Firbank LG (2000) On the rationale and interpretation of the Farm Scale Evaluations of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B 358: 1779-1799
Stewart CN, Halfhill MD, Warwick SI (2003) Transgene introgression from genetically modified crops to their wild relatives. Nature Rev. Genet. 4: 806-817 CrossRef
Viard F, Arnaud J-F, Delscluse M, Cuguen J (2004) Tracing back seed and pollen flow within the crop-wild Beta vulgaris complex: genetic distinctiveness vs. hot spots of hybridization over a regionale scale. Mol. Ecol. 13: 1357-1364 CrossRef
Vigouroux Y, Darmency H, Gestat de Garambé T, Richard-Molard M (1999) Gene flow between sugar beet and weed beet. In Lutman P, ed, Gene flow and agriculture: relevance for transgenic crops, B.C.P.C. Symp. Proc. N $^{\circ}$ 72, Farnham, UK, pp 83-88