Using/Inventing GMO Seeds in Landraces

General Discussions
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You know how Landrace Gardening all about Genetic Diversity right? Well what if you could Genetically Engineer the Genetics you want? Think about all the crosses you could form. Like Genetic Crosses between Plant Families! Things that weren’t even suppose to cross can now be crossed thanks to a Genetically Engineered plant that acts as a genetic Bridge between the 2 plants.

Think about it tho, what are we doing when we Breed a Landrace? We are Modifying the Genetic Information via pollination and getting feedback from Nature if it will survive. Why would Open Source GMO’s be any different? Just a though provoking question.

How do you guys feels about Inventing your own GMO’s and using them to cross into a landrace? Could this speed up the Landrace Process? Regardless I think any GMO Seeds we make should be Open Source, hence why I don’t like Monsanto, Who uses GMO’s to make their plants Pesticide Resistant, not to actually improve the genetics or Improve flavor/Yield of a crop. Is this how we make ethical GMO’s? Or is this how we make cool Blue Raspberries to Landrace? Or Squash with Purple Blossoms, or Truly Blue Peppers? Imagine Trowing in those colors into a Landrace and seeing what happens? Mile-A-Minute makes edible Blue Fruits/Nuts, what if we took that color and make it compatible with Pepper Genetics?

Would Going To Seed Accept Open Source GMO Seeds in the Landrace Mixes for 2024? Or would it have to be a separate section? Has anybody Invented GMO’s on their own? Without using Monsanto Seeds? Any tutorials available? I’m still concerned about the Unintended Consequences, I don’t wanna have a Jurassic Park Situation if you know what I mean. hehe :sweat_smile:

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When a million dollar lab goes genetic engineering they typically move one gene at a time over the course of years. When I cross two different species to make a hybrid I am moving thousands in an afternoon.
An excellent book I can recommend is Raoul Robinson’s “Return to Resistance”. His core thesis is that plants can have vertical resistance (carried by single genes with simple inheritance patterns, often producing a single defence chemical) or the can have horizontal resistance (carried by many genes, with complex inheritance patterns). The tools of scientific genetic engineering are so primitive that they can only handle the vertical type of resistance. The legal framework also tends to favour “inventions” with easily explained mechanisms, so megacorporations can maintain patents on specific traits (even though they almost always find them in nature to begin).
Vertical resistance tends to be brittle, since it only takes one mutation in a pest or disease to overcome the single defence molecule in the plant. This has been seen with pretty much all the major GMO crops released to date. This sets up a never ending treadmill of new single gene resistance traits (which the megacorps love since patents only last so long anyway). The strategy falls apart when nature runs out of resistance genes for the companies to pilfer.
That said there are more promising examples of GMO being used well. A collective of papaya growers funded development of a virus resistant strain. The plants produced the virus’s own coat proteins, which prevented it from completing its life cycle and saved the failing industry. The tools of genetic engineering are slowly becoming more accessible to small groups and individuals, and there is a thriving movement of backyard biohackers.
But in the end the tools themselves are pretty limited in what they can do. I still think Burbank style wide hybridisation, landracing from diverse starting strains, and new techniques such as mentor grafting and plant microbiome modification show more promise than hacking out one gene at a time and hoping it ends up lodging somewhere useful in the target genome.

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The opening of Pandora’s box and an unlimited set of unintended consequences we don’t understand or comprehend.

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If you want fancy colors, go to south America and bring back the disco potatoes from the jungle. Dont forger about taking lots of Ayauasca with a shaman for colors.
I’ve heard a podcast of scientists discovering the incredible role soil bacteria play moving into and out of plantroot cells changing gènes.
Zillions of bacteria have genetically engineered for us in a natural way since forever.
I believe this seedsaving movement and humanity will profit from thousands upon thousands people watching their crops cross in all the differing environments earth offers. Adapting locally to swamps, cold, hot, tropical and what have you. Providing basic needs for people who chose to avoid high density pollution cities is incredibly honorable.I strongly believe people will be hindered if they find their seeds polluted by GMO modification efforts. I think we should save old seed grexes to start anew unpolluted.
Everybody’s just chasing the dollars, it’s very blinding to seeing what’s already hère. Gmo missuse is destroying soils all over the earth and has increased pesticide use immensely. It’s turning out to be very expensive.

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So the assumption in Crispr technologies is that we can isolate particular codons and manipulate them. That’s the public facing language. In reality, there are a number of off-target manipulations that occur, in part because molecules are finicky things, and in part because chromosomes regularly contain repeating patterns. So you can attempt to cut out one part and make many insertions at various locations with entirely unknown consequences.

Then we get into bacteria and viruses that are able to modify genomes and the downstream impacts are unfathomable.

That said, random genetic mutation is quite normal. Solar radiation causes twists and omissions all the time. If you grow sweet corn, you’re already landracing with a genetic mutation created by blasting seeds with nuclear radiation.

In the end, who knows. Best to keep to good plants, I think, and leave the deeper tinkering to mother earth.

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Glad to see someone point this out. CRISPR is much less precise than the hype suggests.
There is a vast amount of unknown “dark matter” in biology as well that the simple “one gene one protein” model misses. For example chromosomes form a complex 3D structure when they unfold to position genes on separate chromosomes that cross regulate each other close together in space. When humans add a new gene to an organism it is pretty much a complete guess where it should go for optimum activity and regulation. Hence why the small number of transformed cells need to under go extensive phenotypic selection before they can lead to a useful plant.

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I’m unbothered by the idea of gene editing, as a technology. I’m only bothered by the ugly business model that currently surrounds it. Open source GMOs would be very interesting to see.

Early in Carol Deppe’s Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, she talks about how moving just one gene usually isn’t going to be particularly helpful. The vast majority of agriculturally important traits (like disease resistance, vigor, and flavor) come from a combination of dozens and dozens of different genes, all of which interact with each other in unexpected ways.

So gene editing is a tool that would probably only be useful in specific situations, such as the one you outlined. Using gene editing to create a bridge to cross two species that wouldn’t normally be able to cross sounds like a really interesting idea.

STUN landracing is a great, highly versatile tool that is the best in most situations. There are also other tools that are useful: for instance, manual crossing, embryo rescue, inbreeding, cloning, and grafting. Gene editing may be of limited use, but those uses may be unique to it, making it a potentially highly valuable tool.

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This is the podcast where frontier soil scientists speak frankly of their cluelessness. And all the newly discoverings they do have made.
I find it so refreshing.
We’re toddlers as a species really. Rushing this, rushing that. If we could calm down we’d realise we own eternity.
Anyway…

https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/regen-skills-new-podcast-the-genius-of-plant-adaptation-to-stress-in-their-environment/1061

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Somatic fusion is an interesting technique as an alternative to gene editing. It involved taking two cells of different clones or species and fusing their cell membranes, then regrowing the new plant via tissue culture. It is a kind of brute force hybridisation that can even do combinations of different plant families.
Somatic fusion - Wikipedia.

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I have the impression that genetic engineering takes a lot of money. So are you going to buy all the equipment necessary to do it?

I would not be uninterested in the results. But the only genetic engineering project I found myself interested in so far, was… I think it was maybe a tomato that had anthocyanin throughout the flesh. People go on about antho tomato skin, which has been bred in from Solanum chilense and maybe some Galapagos tomatoes, and the advertising says about the antioxidants, but my sense is that the health benefit is effectively irrelevant due to the tiny proportion of the fruit effected. I think it’s just a visual appeal. But a full fruit, that should make a significant difference!

But still, I prefer the idea of just not using gene editing. And, I have made some crosses that the charts say can’t be done, like crossing domestic tomatoes with arcanum, and I might have managed some peruvianum crosses too - yet to see, as the potentially F1 are now growing out.

But there are other means too. It’s possible to graft plants of different genera to each other, and using mentor grafts that should be able to bring cytoplasmic elements over that should be able to be passed on through the next generations. Also using the same method, it could be possible to cross species which supposedly can’t be crossed. There’s Russian work from the 50’s that claims to have pollinated peruvianum with lycopersicum by grafting the per. to the lyc. in a mentor graft - or was it the other way around… Also there are methods crossing to flowers I think it’s 5 (or is it 4?) days before they open, to avoid incompatibility mechanism. And there are ways of grinding up plant material from different species and growing out some kind of mix from that, I am less familiar with that method. Then there’s embryo rescue, a way around where pollination can occur cross-species but the endosperm doesn’t form. And, methods involving using compatible pollen that has gone through freezing cycles so it’s won’t pollinate, then mixing that with some pollen from another species, to trick the flower into being happier which gives the foreign pollen a better chance of trying to pollinate.

And then there’s the use of bridge species. For example I’m interested in bringing in peruvianum genetics to domestic tomatoes, so along side my direct cross attempts, I’m also trying to establish a population of peruvianum x pennelllii crosses, which I will later try to cross to lycopersicum. Ideally I would like to preserve the SI system and the UI system of peruvianum in the process.

In theory one might even be able to build a sequence of bridges from one genera to another. I think it was Joseph who gave the analogy of individuals along the shore of a lake. You know, like, a small difference between each neighbour. Well, in some cases there might be not only neighbours compatible in some way between species, but also at the edge of species to the next genus, so perhaps you could bring genetics step by step across multiple genera. Oh and, if you’re in a hurry, speed breeding would come in handy for that, since you could grow maybe up to 5 generations in one year.

So, I would suggest these methods might be worth trying instead of GMO for at least some crosses normally considered ‘impossible’.

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Wow! I’d never heard of that before, and it could definitely be interesting!

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I agree, but unfortunately Monsanto already opened the Pandora’s Box (Tho I also don’t think they were the 1st, so correct me if I’m wrong).

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hmm That’s Interesting, Pollination is still more efficient at Genetic Transfer. Eventually Genetic Engineering tools will become less Primitive especially when Artificial Intelligence can pin point exactly what genes we need to edit to achieve the result we want. Artificial Intelligence can make more mistakes than we can in our lifetime therefore will find out the answer faster simply because it’s faster at trial & error than us.

Since Vertical Gene Transfer can be Brittle, what if you Combine the 2? Use GMO Techniques combined with Landracing? Imagine if it’s just that one Pesky gene that’s halting your landrace project? We already know Genetic Engineering Exists in Nature Via Viruses, so If Viruses have this God Tier right to alter the Genetic code of life, why can’t we? I doubt Virus know what they are doing but maybe they do? Who knows.

OOOOH That’s even MORE INTERESTING, Mentor Grafting like that Soviet Breeder Ivan Muchurin did is fascinating! Even more so is the Microbiome effect on the genes! This legit might even be more efficient, damn… I’m learning so much THANK YOU!

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Damn, GMO Missues is destroying soils because of how Monsanto uses their GMO’s, like putting the Pesticide resistance in the Gene code so they can be sprayed with even more toxic pesticides. I can’t imagine how much damage has been to our soils over the year. But Nature will eventually recover.

I’m absolutely fascinated with the Role Soil Bacteria have been playing in Genetically Engineering our Plants. Damn… We humans must be slow to game or just really suck at it? I think it’s actually just the greed for Money that corrupts GMO’s. Maybe we as human beings don’t have to humility to learn from nature because we are blinded by ego, that we somehow don’t need nature’s help or input?
Also 2nd thought, can we engineer or Breed Bacteria to engineer the plants for us? Imagine if we could breed a landrace of bacteria (If we aren’t already doing it by simple gardening)?

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Yo that’s INSANELY AWESOME!!! Hmm is this similar to Embryo Rescue techniques? Is this how we Event New Species or even new a Genus? Is Somatic Fusion easy to do, what I mean is Affordable on a Small Scale like a Backyard Gardener?

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Those Charts are goofy, Of course you can cross them, they belong to the same Subgenus and Section! Thank you for Confirming tho!

Yea Mentor Grafting is Amazing. Apparently Ivan Michurin was able to Graft Lemons onto a Pear (Completly Different Families) and apparently it worked!? Check out this link
https://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/Michurin/MichurinPearLemon.html

Wait are you talking about Mixing Pollen from Multiple Males onto a Single Female Flower so that way it is tricked into accepting Pollen it otherwise wouldn’t have been able to?

Can you explain what you mean by SI system and UI system? UI = User Interface System?

5 GENERATIONS IN 1 YEAR!? Does this Involve Greenhouse? or Very Low Days to Maturity? How would you make this work? Teamwork across multiple Breeders?

Overall Very Epic Tips, THANK YOU!

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So basically as I understand it GMO’s Become another basic Tool for Breeding? Like taking the right dog to the right hunt?

I’ve Heard that GMO’s can Save the American Chestnut by Simply Taking Bacteria genes from a Grass/Wheat type plant (I Believe it was). I mean if it saves the American Chestnut does it go against Landrace Principals tho? Since it didn’t abide by Survival of the fittest? Or is this something that that goes against the core principals of Landrace Gardening? Where you don’t allow Nature to Cull what won’t survive via GMO’s? or… is this Nature telling us to Try again, and if it survives with our Modifications, Nature automatically approves because if she didn’t, it wouldn’t have been surviving in the first place?

Wait does STUN Stand for Sheer Total Utter Neglect?

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Well all good Science always Requires you Leaving your Ego Behind and Having the Humility to Accept that you don’t know everything. It’s refreshing indeed!
I think it also ties back to the growth mindset, which all good scientist have. Wait… Does that make us all Scientist now?
I also know in the Botanist/Taxonomist Comunites, there is this big Ego Drive to Find a New Species and Name it after yourself? Is this why we have so many Species in the first place? Is this why Breeders constantly prove Botanist and Taxonomist Wrong when the Managed to Cross the Impossible?

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It’s faster at trial and error within digital space but physical space has limitations. Also the assumption that it will become ‘less primitive’ may be well founded, but we can’t assume that is unlimited, since societies don’t progress on a linear path, especially when in the midst of a mass extinction event as we are in now. I would not be surprised if there is widespread societal collapse even within the next 5 or 10 years. So, technological evolution might even take a downward turn.

Out of interest, may I ask, why do you capitalise the first letter of so many words?

I might hesitate to assume ‘of course’! Charts are not comprehensive, so there are some exceptions, such as differences in particular accessions, or some crosses that just have a very very low success rate so only work if you try very many times under special conditions. But the charts can be very useful and relatively reliable, and if you try your hand at crossing, you’ll find there really are various limitations! It’s not the case that you can just easily cross any species within subgenus. But like I said, there may be some ways around it such as using species as a bridge.

Yes so I have read, but not tried. Again there will be limitations but this method can apparently be useful in some cases.

Sure, sorry - self incompatibility and unilateral incompatibility.

Could be greenhouse with added lights, or could be only artificial lights. And low days to maturity can be accomplished by for example manipulating daylength, light spectrum, and space for roots - smaller space will force them to flower sooner. With some crops you can get 5 cycles in a single venue in one year. I’m not pushing it that far but right now I have fruits growing on a plant that I grew for seed that I made by crossing another plant that I first germinated earlier this year, and this fruit is also crossed, so that’s a double cross all starting this year. Potentially I could grow out the seeds from this fruit and have the seeds for the next generation ready to plant next season outside. Which would mean 3 years of work in one year. It seemed the logical way for me since environmental selection doesn’t really become important until the F2 plants or hybrid swarm anyway.

No. If something is believed to be impossible to cross and then it is crossed and proven, then knowledge is just updated. Botanists and taxonomists are just ordinary people, though likely more logical than average. I would also caution attributing too much to peoples ‘egos’. I would expect that if you sat down and had a drink with some of those folk you might end up admiring and respecting them quite a bit.

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Hmm this gives us all a reason to Prep and Not Loose Hope. Yea SHTF has been going Bonkerz, another reason why I am Motivated to Soak in as Much Information as Possible. Legit Breeding a Landrace to Survive SHTF situation feels like a BIG BLINDSPOT for most Preppers. Even for most if not all Governments who are the Biggest of Preppers. AI can either push us Forward, or destroy us all, hence why I find comfort in God & Gardening which stood the test of time.

Habbit I guess, Never really thought about it. Hmm Oh I know, I Subconsciously Capitalize the most Important words in a Sentence. Basically when Grammer lacks a voice & body language, I substitute with Capitalizations, or making an ENTIRE WORD all caps, and BOLD!

That’s good Practice! I say of course because the Crossability between those Solanums are doable based off of Phylogenic trees. Of Course Nature will always/Constantly Prove us wrong and Hybridization is never almost fully 100% strict. Still might be 80% Strict tho. Also by Of Course, I’m assuming you are going to be using Bridge Pollinating Grexes (Pollinating F1 Results with 1 or both Parents to form a Bridge in a grex), Mentor Grafting, Mentor Pollination (Mixing Multiple different Pollen to Pollinate 1 Female Flower) Storing and Collecting Pollen if Flower Times are Off, Embryo Resque, Using Freshest Seeds & as Opposed to Dried Seeds (Just to Bridge the genetic gap, not the Finished landrace), Surgically remove material from the graft zone and see if you can root it and if it will be more compatible to accept pollen, Pollinating Flowers before they open, etc because THERE ARE TONS OF METHODS! This is what I mean by Easily, where you don’t have to get into GMO’s to make a Hybrid, or waste time & effort on results that won’t likely happen.

Wait, Incompatible with it’s relatives? This is a new term I’ve never heard of? Can you give me examples? Are Cucurbita pepo x Cucurbita maxima x Cucurbita moschata examples? They are all Crossable but Require Special techinques like the ones mentioned above.

Bro, You are BLOWING MY MIND!!! How would you reasonable do that on a Small Scale? Cuz it’s Fascinating AF! The only problem I have with Smaller Space, are you also selecting for Container Variety Landrace?
I know they are techniques for Trees, But I never thought to apply them to Annuals. Hmm oh wait, is this similar to how Peppers are Perennial where if you bring them inside, you can continue your work? Then Bring them outside again or constantly take cuttings?

Interesting, hmm… What Fruits are you actually doing this with? Apples? Cuz if so they Require Winter to Form Fruit Buds and Exiting the Juvenal stage.
Also can Robots and Artificial Intelligence help us Breed Fruits & Veggies Faster (of Course within Limits)?

Also would be very helpful if you can make a Step by Step Tutorial on how to do this or Use examples to show the Process because you are Opening New Doors for me, Doors I’ve never even knew were there.

YES!!! Actual true Science, I LOVE IT!!! Thank you for all the VALUABLE INFO!

I suspect the same too, I already do. I’m also trying to understand why & how ego Ruins Scientific Work & Discovery. Cuz to me, True Science & Ego are incompatible, hence why I try to separate the two.
Also by ego I mean the belief that your are incapable of error or mistakes. Where your ego Justifies your errors and won’t let you correct them.
I believe it Takes Humility to do Science Properly.