So, what is the terroir of a GMO fruit?

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
If terroir is some kind of combination of the cultivar, the place (meaning soil and climate), and the traditions, what does it mean if we discover/manufacture an entirely new grape? Is it akin to bringing in cabernet and chardonnay where you used to grow sangiovese and vermentino? More, less?
 
Funny you should mention cabernet, which was an entirely new grape not that long ago. Cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc had a chance rendezvous and the result is the GMO we call cabernet sauvignon.
 
There are much more recent examples than Cabernet that are around in significant quantities. Scheurebe and Müller-Thurgau to mention a few.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Keith-- That's not GMO, and you know it. (Don't trust anyone who says you're funny.)
Click to expand...
Of course it's a GMO. If you believe in evolution, then all Os are GMOs. If you are a creationist and figure that all life on the planet comes to us in a specific form designed by a higher authority, then you can believe in an intrinsic difference between Os whose Gs are M'ed randomly and Os whose Gs are M'ed by human design.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Keith-- That's not GMO, and you know it. (Don't trust anyone who says you're funny.)
Click to expand...
Of course it's a GMO. If you believe in evolution, then all Os are GMOs. If you are a creationist and figure that all life on the planet comes to us in a specific form designed by a higher authority, then you can believe in an intrinsic difference between Os whose Gs are M'ed randomly and Os whose Gs are M'ed by human design.
Click to expand...

Oh, Lord. I'd like to dump this whole thread in teh fatsink.

This is sophistry. Of course, it isn't. GMOs are organisms whose genomes have been altered by genetic engineering, not by traditional plant breeding. Nor are they bud sports or spontaneous mutations. Sure, you can stretch the definition, but that is not how it is conventionally defined or how most people understand it.
 
Jay and Jonathan and Keith: No one is against selective breeding, etc etc. That manipulates genes via their expression, not via snipping nucleotide strand segments. There is a difference.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Jay and Jonathan and Keith: No one is against selective breeding, etc etc. That manipulates genes via their expression, not via snipping nucleotide strand segments. There is a difference.
Click to expand...
No difference whatsoever except for the difference between sharp instruments and blunt ones.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Jay and Jonathan and Keith: No one is against selective breeding, etc etc. That manipulates genes via their expression, not via snipping nucleotide strand segments. There is a difference.
Click to expand...
No difference whatsoever except for the difference between sharp instruments and blunt ones.
Click to expand...

Ditto for the difference between eugenics and choosing to reproduce with someone one finds attractive.
 
Eugenics is different and a red herring in two ways:

1)Because it is exercised upon humans and is so exercised by killing, allowing to die or obstructing reproductive choices, it raises obvious moral issues that such activities with regard to animals, much less plants, do not; and

2)Because its aim is the general improvement of the species through breeding and because human generational time spans are long, the population large and the genetic connections with the traits sought for uncertain, even if it weren't immoral, its likelihood of being effective is extraordinarily low.

Neither of these things applies to cross pollination or breeding to produce specific traits in individual animals or plants.

And, again, I agree with Keith. The only difference between GMOs manufactured in a laboratory and GMOs manufactured by selective breeding is how the modification took place. If you are arguing that that difference creates significantly different dangers, then the reason will not be the fact of modification.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
And, again, I agree with Keith. The only difference between GMOs manufactured in a laboratory and GMOs manufactured by selective breeding is how the modification took place. If you are arguing that that difference creates significantly different dangers, then the reason will not be the fact of modification.
Click to expand...
This puzzles me, Jonathan. I don't think I staked the position that one or the other way does not make modifications. I do argue that the dangers are different.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
another perfect example of gmo run amok is the domestic dog.
Click to expand...
Heh. Have you seen the studies that show that if you selectively breed foxes that show less aggression towards humans that their phenotype moves towards that of domestic dogs (flatter skull, broader snout, etc.)?
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Ditto for the difference between eugenics and choosing to reproduce with someone one finds attractive.
Click to expand...
I disagree. In the former case, someone tells me with whom I may mate; in the latter, I choose.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Jay and Jonathan and Keith: No one is against selective breeding, etc etc. That manipulates genes via their expression, not via snipping nucleotide strand segments. There is a difference.
Click to expand...
No difference whatsoever except for the difference between sharp instruments and blunt ones.
Click to expand...
You are way focused on the theory and not the practice. The Devil is in the details and I, for one, cannot master the details of a set of 3 billion nucleotide pairs (for a human; presumably a billion less for plants but that's just species-ism).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top