Cloning Plants

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Cloning Plants

• By David Terry
• Rob Van Nuland

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Introduction

• The issue being discussed is agricultural cloning
  of plants.
• This process has been a controversial issue on
  mother nature and genetically modified
  vegetables.
• Agricultural cloning can be very efficient for
  producing quality vegetables but there are many
  cons as well as the pros and many different
  opinions on the issue.
• There are also many ways in which cloning can be
  done and it is expanding or growing into many
  fields.

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Genetic Technology Used

• In the last few years, many advances have been
  made with gene isolation and insertion.
• Paired with standard methods of plant tissue
  culture and plant regeneration, these new
  techniques allow us to construct transgenic
  plants that contain and express a single gene
  from any source a microbe, animal, or other
  plant species.
• The transgenic plants, usually normal in
  appearance and character, differ from the parent
  only with respect to the function and influence
  of the inserted gene.

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Tissue Culture Propagation
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Pros of Cloning Plants

• Through cloning, and genetically altering plants,
  we can yield
• Maximum crop sizes
• Technically healthier foods
• Weather/disease/insect/herbicide resistant crops
• Better tasting foods (larger, high quality)
• Earlier/delayed fruit ripening (longer lasting
  fruit)
• Foods high in nutrients/vitamins or low in
  calories, trans-fats and cholesterol

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Roundup, the weed killer

• An example of one beneficial use of genetically
  altered crops is giving a plant a herbicide
  resistant gene.
• There is a widely used herbicide called Roundup,
  made by Monsanto.
• Roundup kills any plant that it touches. Monsanto
  has genetically modified soybeans and other crop
  plants to create "Roundup Ready" strains that are
  not affected by Roundup.
• By planting Roundup Ready seeds, a farmer can
  control weeds by spraying Roundup right over the
  crop. The crop completely ignores the herbicide,
  but the weeds are eliminated.
• Roundup Ready seeds reduce production costs and
  increase yield, so food becomes less expensive.

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Cons of Cloning Plants

• The real problem with cloning is that it's vastly
  overdone. The overuse of clones in agriculture
  and horticulture is risky because if a major food
  crop, say, is based on only one or two cultivars,
  a disease or insect attack can wipe it out.
• A clone plant can perpetuate itself successfully
  in nature, sometimes even better than any normal
  plant, but only so long as the environment
  remains reasonably constant.
• If the environment changes drastically, a
  clonally reproduced species may be at a
  disadvantage because it's less likely to be able
  to evolve forms better adapted to the new
  conditions, unlike normal plants.
• And in current conditions, such as the effect of
  global warming on crops, clonally reproduced
  plants may be at more risk than ever.

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• However, there are always disadvantages. Mainly
  the cost and time needed for the process or
  consumer resistance. Another disadvantage is that
  the genetically altered offspring might not be
  able to reproduce naturally. The public fears
  unnatural transgenic foods.
• Large biotechnology companies are taking over the
  scene, making seed unavailable to low income
  farms.
• The idea that transgenic foods will put an end to
  world hunger is farfetched.
• Some people believe that genetically altered
  foods are a step towards altering humans.
• They believe eventually this whole idea of
  playing God will backfire and all our progress
  will be lost, nothing will be the way it was
  before, when apples grew on trees.
• Could we be creating a monster?

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Our Point of View

• We believe that the agricultural cloning of
  plants has more advantages than it does
  disadvantages.
• This is because the cloning of plants allow for
  efficient crops to be produced as well better
  quality foods.
• The cloning of plants allows us to actually make
  the perfect plant.

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• Biotechnology companies are the ones who are
  advancing in this cloning technology, such as
  Monsanto (St Louis, USA) and Du Pont
  (Wilmington, USA).
• Theyve spent billions of dollars in their
  efforts to produce and research different ways to
  enhance foods through genetically altering foods.
  
• At current times though, their goals of making
  genetically altered crops a global agricultural
  technique, providing quality food, enough to end
  world starvation, just isnt a reality.
• But this will be the way of the future. Countries
  all over the globe will begin to allow crops to
  be altered, and genetically altered foods to be
  sold to the public.
• Although you may not have known, it has already
  begun.
• Some if not most fruits and vegetables found at
  your local grocery store are in one way
  genetically altered, to appeal better to
  customers, to taste better, to store better, to
  be larger, seedless, you name it, its ben done,
  or could be done.
• And we believe there is nothing wrong with
  genetically altered foods.

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Conclusion

• The agricultural cloning of plants is a
  beneficial process of growing crops for size as
  well as quality.
• There are several techniques in cloning plants
  but these are expensive processes.
• It is healthy to have genetically modified foods
  compared to mother natures because there are
  no found side effects and many nutrients and
  vitamins are added to foods. As well, unhealthy
  continents found in regular farm grown foods are
  removed such as trans-fats.

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Bibliography

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