Crazy Canola!!

Again, with my clever alliterations. People ask me all the time how I come up with them and I just don't even know... Anyhoo, now that you have collected yourself from the excitement of my title, we shall begin!

So genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms that have changes in their DNA due to genetic engineering technologies. So when one thinks of these organisms, a laboratory environment probably comes to mind. However, as this article explains, GMOs are popping up in some unexpected places. In Langdon, North Dakota a couple ecologists saw a yellow canola plant growing near a parking lot. They picked some of the plants and after conducting some tests discovered that the canola was genetically modified!

Surprisingly, this isn't a rare find. North Dakota grows loads of the canola both conventional and genetically modified. It is a weed and its seeds are used to make canola oil. The canola's scientific name is Brassica napus var oleifera. What may shock you even more is the fact that  almost everywhere the ecologists and their colleagues went, they found more of the GM canola! They even found the transgenic canola in fields in the middle of nowhere.
So what does this mean to you and me? This means that transgenic plants are probably cross-breeding in the wild and swapping introduced genes. Depending on your views on GM foods, this could very easily frighten/worry you, or not affect you at all. Now GM canola has been found everywhere from Canada to Japan. However, this is the first time the plants have been found to evolve in this way. Ecologist Cindy Sagers of the University of Arkansas, explained that there are new combinations of transgenic traits and the best explanation for this would be that the traits are stable outside of cultivation and that they are evolving.
Most of the transgenic plant populations die out quickly without continual replenishment, but the canola plant is not having this problem. It is able to hybridize with at least 2, and possibly 8, different wild weed species in North America.
As of now, there is no evidence to say whether herbicide resistance genes will either increase or decrease in fitness. Weed scientist Carol Mallory-Smith of Oregon State University, explained that the biggest concern is whether or not these traits will increase invasiveness or weediness and traits such as drought tolerance, salt tolerance, heat or cold tolerance. This canola plant is not the first escaped transgenic population, and due to advancements in technology, it probably won't be the last