Scientists Play Down "Superweed"

"Herbicide-tolerant weeds tend to under-perform compared with wild type, so unless all its competitors have been sprayed out with the same herbicide, it won't thrive," commented Dr Les Firbank, who led the consortium of scientists on the recent UK Farm-Scale Evaluations (FSEs) of genetically modified plants. "There's lots of evidence for that," he told the BBC News website. Seed collection The study was conducted by Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) researchers. It looked for any evidence that a genetic trait in an oilseed rape, engineered to be resistant to a particular herbicide called Liberty, would pass to near-relatives growing wild in the field or at the margin. The degree to which such transfer is possible informs the debate about superweeds, which some have claimed could upset ecological relationships in the countryside and so harm biodiversity. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4715221.stm [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 3, 2005]

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