9.04.2006

They were thinking of calling it Soylent Green...

The first genetically engineered bentgrass (designed to resist the effects of the herbicide glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup) has escaped into the wild.
Intended for use on golf courses, the joint venture by Scotts Miracle-Gro & Monsanto went wild when "seed from a test plot escaped several years ago while it was drying following a harvest in Oregon's Willamette Valley, home to most of the U.S. grass seed industry and the world's largest producer of commercial grass varieties".
While some industry experts believe development of the engineered grass may be an economic question rather than a biological issue, acquired resistance could force land managers and government agencies like the U.S. Forest Service, which relies heavily on Roundup, to switch to "nastier" herbicides to control grasses and weeds, according to Norman Ellstrand, a geneticist and plant expert at the University of California, Riverside, who noted "This is not a killer tomato, this is not the asparagus that ate Cleveland."

No. Neither was kudzu. And look how well that turned out...

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