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Comment by viggity | Hacker News Reader

Having worked in R&D (molecular breeding dept) of <insert huge agribusiness> for 4 years, this article has highlighted that I do in fact suffer from Gell-Mann Amnesia.

There a great many things that this article gets wrong/not quite right, and yet I'll probably read the next NPR story and think "oh, that is interesting". http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

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Would love to read a detailed analysis of the article. I'm presently a front-end dev for a gardener's supply company, so my curiosity is piqued.

1. they kind of implied that the seed companies build in a "security lock" on hybrid plants. Hybrid progeny have wildly different/non-uniform offspring because that is just the way genetics work. You have two pools of inbred (100% or near homozygous) plants, you cross pollinate them and they have very uniform results because they have pretty uniform genetics and have "hybrid vigor". The next generation (what the farmer harvests) has likely been open air pollinated has a garbled mess of genetics and will therefore underperform if planted. Enough so that it isn't worth trying to re-plant instead of buying new seed. It depends of the species however, Corn is like this, but soybeans are a self pollinating plant so hybrid soybeans aren't really a thing.

2. Not all plants are patent-able, only ones that reproduce asexually. Monansto/DuPont don't patent varieties of corn or soybeans as they don't reproduce asexually, but they DO patent gene insertions (aka BioTech Traits, or BT traits). Getting a gene that kills rootworm or has glyphosate (roundup) resistance is mind bogglingly expensive. When a variety has multiple traits inserted you'll hear it called "a stack". These high cost, high benefit efforts are precisely the kinds of things we would want to be patent-able to encourage companies to invest the huge amount of resources.

Curious on the "hybrid progeny have wildly different/non-uniform offspring." I bought some "Big Thai Hybrid" chilies because that's what the store had (rather than just regular Thai chilies). Any idea how far offspring will diverge? I'd imagine that if I saved seed I'd get something much like a Thai chili ...

Update: Go ahead, save seeds from your hybrid tomatoes!

http://blog.arrowheadalpines.com/2011/08/go-ahead-save-seeds...

In response to 1: If all the genetics in a crop are nearly identical, that may make the crop uniforms and predictable, but it also makes the crop uniformly susceptible to drought, disease or crop predators (e.g. insects). That's great if you're in the business of selling chemicals to kill specific diseases or predators, but not so great if you have to buy them. A genetically diverse crop will have have some plants that can withstand whatever.

The crop yield may be lower, but the cost of inputs (e.g. chemicals) will also be lower. If the goal is to maximize farmer profit, then there may be a more optimal solution that uses greater genetic diversity.

Well, you're still going to have many varieties (genetic profiles). The big seed companies will sell 5-10 varieties per region. Regions depend on growing season length, soil conditions, climate. Iowa has 7 regions, IIRC. If I had to guess in the whole country there are ~100+ regions. That means thousands of hybrids across the different seed companies across the country. So even if a pest knocked out one variety (which doesn't really happen), it isn't like the whole system is going to come crumbling down. They spend billions researching it and there are lots of rules regarding "refuge" to ensure that insects and diseases don't build up a tolerance to treatments.

Usually when you hear about people worry about "the mono-culture" they are advocating that we plant more of a different types of plants (canola, sunflower, sorghum, wheat), not different varieties of corn/beans.

Also, that they are all identical is bit of a misnomer. They are, but they are exceptionally strong, vigorous plants (google "hybrid vigor" or "heterosis").

Thanks! Both great insights, and and the self-polinating/asexual reproduction bits seem like they'll occupy the rest of my afternoon in a wikipedia-hole.

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