Be very clear about the following study. We are talking about Genetically Modified grass for golf courses! Yes, let’s risk everything to save some work for people who cater to people who play golf. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Or does it show we can’t trust any business to choose between profit and world destruction — they will choose badly every time. Once may be all it takes. mjh

Wind carries GM pollen record distances newscientist.com

Creeping bentgrass is a favourite of golf course managers, who say it provides a uniquely smooth surface for putting greens. But weeds can interrupt the smoothness, so course managers want a grass that is resistant to the herbicides that kill the weeds. …

Scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) focused on fields that have been growing GM varieties of creeping bentgrass near Madras in central Oregon, US, for two years. The experimental grasses are genetically modified to resist popular herbicides, such as Roundup.

Lidia Watrud and colleagues from the EPA?s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, collected seeds from wild grasses growing tens of kilometres around the experimental plots. …

Watrud?s team found extensive gene contamination within 2 km downwind of the experimental plots. But some pollen went much further. Contaminated grass seeds turned up across 310 square km, with the most distant find 21 km from the source.

Only a handful of studies have ever investigated gene flow from crops – GM or otherwise – at distances greater than a few hundred metres. Studies have found radish and sunflower genes travelling 1 km, marrow (or squash) genes travelling 1.3 km and oil-seed rape (or canola) genes travelling up to 3 km.

But the suspicion is that pollen from many crops could travel hundreds of kilometres on the winds.

?To my knowledge, this is the longest distance reported for GM pollen dispersal,? says David Quist, whose research into the genetic spread of GM maize in Mexico caused a row after its publication in Nature in June 2002.