Re:Argentine government favors farmers in dispute with Monsanto
by Kalium on Thursday April 21, 2016 @04:42PM
(#11545197)
I sit corrected. Instead, the current typical approach is to use cross-breeding to produce seeds that grow well the first generation and don't produce reliable seeds themselves.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Argentine government favors farmers in dispute with Monsanto
by mejari on Thursday April 21, 2016 @06:54PM
(#11545907)
That is misleading, as the goal of that cross-breeding is not to produce unreliable seeds, but in order to produce better results. Look up "hybrid vigor" for details on this. Nothing about the cross-breeding is done in order to hinder re-use of the seeds, it's just that naturally non-hybrid seeds are less effective.
Re:Argentine government favors farmers in dispute with Monsanto
by Kalium on Thursday April 21, 2016 @09:38PM
(#11546519)
As I understand it, the idea is to have two parent lines that when produce the desired traits in heterozygous offspring but not in second-generation offspring. Sort of a Mendelian DRM.
Re:Argentine government favors farmers in dispute with Monsanto
by mejari on Thursday April 21, 2016 @11:21PM
(#11546861)
This is incorrect. As I already stated: the cross-breeding is to take advantage of hybrid vigor[1], it is not an effort to intentionally hamper successive generations. This same practice occurs in non-GMO, non-patented plant breeding, and has been done for over a hundred years[2]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_plant_breeding#Gree...