Escaped Golf-course Grass Frees Gene Genie In The US

New Scientist ^ | 8-9-2006 | Andy Coghlan

[blam]

Escaped golf-course grass frees gene genie in the US

09 August 2006

Andy Coghlan

A nondescript grass discovered in the Oregon countryside is hardly an alien invasion. Yet the plant - a genetically modified form of a grass commonly grown on golf courses - is worrying the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) enough that it is running its first full environmental impact assessment of a GM plant.

It is the first time a GM plant has escaped into the wild in the US, and it has managed it before securing USDA approval. The plant, creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera, carries a bacterial gene that makes it immune to the potent herbicide glyphosate, better known as Roundup. The manufacturer, The Scotts Company, Marysville, Ohio, is hoping the grass will provide a turf that makes it easier for golf course owners to manage their fairways and greens by letting them kill competing weedy grasses with glyphosate.

“It could prove extremely popular with the thousands of golf course managers in the US, making it easy for it to spread”Jay Reichman and colleagues at the US Environmental Protection Agency's labs in Corvallis, Oregon, identified nine escapees out of 20,400 plants of various grass varieties sampled within a 4.8-kilometre radius of the site where the bentgrass is being cultivated, the most distant 3.8 kilometres away. The team showed that the GM grass has spread both by pollinating non-GM plants to form hybrids, and by seed movement.

Bentgrass is a perennial, so once out there it regrows year after year, whereas most GM crops - mainly soybeans, maize and canola (oilseed rape) - are annuals, unable to reproduce, harvested each year and replaced with an entirely new crop the next. Another worry is that unlike the other GM crops. . .

[Recon Dad]

I just want grass that lets me drop some putts!

[hollywood]

So, GM is finally making that 'grass'-based vehicle from "Up In Smoke"?

[Recon Dad]

Much more important than life on Mars, or ...Ned Lamont, or...

[Moonman62]

It was a hybrid. A cross of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about it is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus.

That was the scene that popped into my head when I saw the title. The best low budget movie ever made. How about a Fresca?

[pointsal]

big divot

[Old Student]

"A lawn that won't die? How bad can that be? I mean, unless it develops an opposable thumb and starts making assault weapons in its basement."

Obviously, you can't hear Chicken Little screaming. It's a perennial, and hybridizes easily, and is immune to Roundup, so it's going to take over the world. It will kill off all other plants, including Kudzu and crabgrass, so we're all gonna starve to death. /sarc...

[FlJoePa]

New synthetic lawns are far removed from the old Brady Bunch lawn:

[Chode]

The plant, creeping bentgrass...

just exactly what part of CREEPING don't they understand???

[Nuc1]

I gotta get some of this stuff. Since I have been helping my mom in the evening, taking care of the lawn is the last thing I have time for. What used to be the best looking lawn in the neighborhood is now overrun with crabgrass. It will take quite an effort to restore. I wonder how winter hardy his stuff is.

[yhwhsman]

the lazy man's perfect lawn

Check this out, I'm going to start converting my lawn next spring: Buffalo Grass

3 to 5" tall, needs little water once established, and can handle Nebraska winters.