What is a Transgenic Plant?

Function

• Transgenic plants have genes that have been transferred over from a different species. They are made in laboratories using recombinant DNA technology. The goal of transgenic plants is to create plants with new characteristics via artificially adding genes from different species (sometimes even from species from entirely different kingdoms).

Considerations

• There are some risks associated with transgenic plants, mostly because of the possible impact on ecosystems. Some of the worries are whether transgenic plants can pass their genes onto local wild species, whether the transgenic plants are able to grow and thrive outside of the cultivated areas, and whether bringing the transgene in can bring about an advantage to the hybrids or plants in the wild.

Benefits

• There have been some useful benefits that have come about as a result of transgenic plants. Researchers have been able to transfer three transgenes into rice to help the plants manufacture beta-carotene, which is a precursor to Vitamin A. Also, transgenic plants aid with insect, disease and herbicide resistance. They also assist with salt tolerance, as the transgenes can help eliminate excess sodium in plants.

Potential

• What is the reason transgenic plants were created in the first place? The thought process was like this - wanted genes that are transferred over to other plants (transgenes) have various desirable qualities that can improve and make crop plants as useful and productive as possible. Some of the features of transgenes can be improved quality, higher yield and tolerance to cold, heat and drought. Since combining the highest quality genes from plants can be a long and arduous process, only closely related plants are brought together.

Theories/Speculation

• About 75 million acres of transgenic plants are cultivated in the United States. This amounts to about 2.5 trillion transgenic plants in existence over the past dozen or so years. They have brought upon a lot of improvements to society, and have proven to not be harmful to the environment or to humans.