Wilding pine costs could soar past $4b

Half as much as a new classroom at a "green" school Why dont we just do what farmers did to rabbits. Find a bug that kills wilding pines and smuggle it into the country. Then mix it up in a food processor Job done. Thats right Just like there are pet rabbits and rabbits used for research they also grow pine trees for wood

On a less tongue-in-cheek note: why cant we develop sterile plantation pines? Many patented crop seeds are sterile so that buyers can't grow their own seed fron the resulting plants - so why not sterile pine trees? Never been given an informed answer to that one.

There is an answer to that one but it does verg towards the conspirisy theory side of healthy debate. Monsanto is the reason. That needs explaining but you will of heard of Monsanto. One of the biggest agriculture companies in the world and a big manufacturer of fertilizer pesticide and GE crops.Its these last 2 that are the biggest concern. They were also the first company to patent GE seeds and make them produce sterile plants. That much is easily verified via google. When it comes to pine trees though forestry companies still rule the roost against companies like Monsanto so they can still dictate to the seed suppliers that real seeds produce real trees that produce more real seeds. Also there is no money in producing sterile seeds for a crop that takes 20 or more years to grow.

Not completely accurate. Monsanto neither developed nor own exclusive rights to the technology for 2nd-generation plant sterility. Google 'GURT' for an example of non-Monsanto-owned techniques. The main wilding-producing farmed conifer in NZ is Douglas Fir (Oregon). Radiata, the other main production tree, causes relatively few problems with wildings. I've not seen the other problematic trees (Nigra, Contorta, Ponderosa) planted commercially. Production of sterile Douglas Fir is possible and has been done in controlled environments in NZ - https://fgr.nz/news/forest-growers-newsletter-august-2020/ But NZ's restrictions on GM technology make it's use outside the lab 'unlikely' unless a law change happens. Until then we'll keep spending millions of dollars a year mopping up downwind of plantation forestry - often by boom or lance spraying some of the most concentrated chemical mixes used for any plant control in NZ. Hope the anti-GE purists can reconcile the environmental impact of that one with their beliefs.

There are a number of ways to genetically modify plants to induce sterility. I very much doubt Monsanto have a patent that would cover all of those. Most likely they patent a specific sterile plant strain which they developed and can then sell. The patent protects their commercial property, not the technique or process used to generate it. If a NZ company wanted to develop their own strain it would be unlikely to breach patent, even if it was in the same species. NZ's anti-GMO policy is the main reason this won't fly here. In fact the Royal Society of NZ has actually discussed this very topic (creating sterile Douglas Fir through gene editing) and it is well worth reading. https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Gene-Editing-Summary-Primary-Industries-DIGITAL.pdf They also have some interesting discussion documents on the use of gene editing for pest control and how our current GMO legislation is badly out of date and no longer fit for purpose. https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/major-issues-and-projects/gene-editing-in-aotearoa/

I think its fairly obvious which side of the GE fence I sit. Nature often uses similar methods to evolve species but it generally happens across a timeframe where everything else can adapt at much the same speed. One notable exception to this are viruses. Most species jumps have happened due to a blending of dna between a virus from the original host and a virus from the new host. The result is uncontrolled and 99 times out of 100 produces nothing of interest but the 100th time we get things like Bird flu swine flu covid 19 etc. Until our imune systems catch up we get nuked. Ge can and will produce some great things in the future but glow in the dark rabbits and onions that are totally resistant to glyphosphate weed killer (also a Monsanto patent) are not those breakthroughs. The biggest risk with GE is that the testers do not test every scenario that might come into play with a GE crop. They dont test pollination because they want to control this. If the crop plant is a major host for some insect that is critical to some other plant or animal then that insect just lost its ability to exist and so did whatever else relied on it

@Geeves. I totally understand what you are saying. Making wholesale changes to a plant or animals genome is unpredictable and releasing these could have unforeseen impact on our ecosystem. This is why we have our GMO legislation to protect against high risk modifications. The thing is that GMOs range in severity, some GMOs have just one base pair change in their genome (i.e one letter of DNA changed in a total of 3 billion) while others can have genes removed (or added) and rarely, some GMOs have larger sections of their genome changed. Clearly the risk is different between these GMOs, the problem is that the current legislation treats these GMOs the same. We are actually in a situation where I could generate a GMO through gene editing that is indistinguishable from an equivalent strain generated by random mutation. One is legal and one is not but the reality is no one would be able to tell them apart and they would have the same "risk" to our ecosystem. In addition, the general public are not aware that under current NZ legislation, treating plants with mutagens (like gamma radiation or chemical mutagens like ENU) and growing the progeny is not considered a genetic modification (i.e the progeny are not GMOs). These can be grown in NZ with no controls and no field testing. This is despite these strategies causing massive and uncontrolled changes to the genome. In fact many of our staple crop strains (corn in particular) were created like this, which is why it was not legislated against (otherwise we would no longer be GMO free). So the idea that making scientists making controlled changes through genetic engineering is going to endanger the environment is not without merit but in many cases this is actually less risky than what has already been happening. I am fully for GMO regulation but I would favour a risk-based approach to the use of these in the field. Some GMOs might be too risky to use outside of the laboratory but there are instances where our current blanket ban on GMOs is frankly ridiculous. I encourage you to read through those documents from the Royal Society, there is good information there on the risks and benefits of the technology.

One of the biggest risks with GMO is our international trade. Our gmo free status has a huge value. Many of our trade agreements specificly bar the trade in gmo products even when the other country grows gmo produce. I guess they see it as "we know what we are growing but not what your stuff is"

I wonder though whether we can be GMO-free in terms of our food production (satisfying our export market) and still utilise the technology in other areas (such as wildling pine control). I sometimes think the "economic benefits" of our blanket ban on genetic technology are overstated.