The Rio Red, a popular red grapefruit, was created by exposing grapefruit buds to thermal neutron radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1968. Other notable successes of mutation breeding include Creso, the most popular variety of durum wheat used for making pasta in Italy; Calrose 76, a high-yielding California rice; Golden Promise barley, a fine-quality malt used in specialty beers; and some 200 varieties of bread wheat grown around the world.
In 1956, a sample of a barley variety called Maythorpe was irradiated at Britain's Atomic Energy Research Establishment . The result was a strain with stiffer, shorter straw but the same early harvest and malting qualities, which would eventually reach the market as "Golden Promise".
Today scientists use thermal neutrons, X-rays, or ethyl methane sulphonate, a harsh carcinogenic chemical--anything that will damage DNA--to generate mutant cereals. Virtually every variety of wheat and barley you see growing in the field was produced by this kind of "mutation breeding". No safety tests are done; nobody protests. The irony is that genetic modification (GM) was invented in 1983 as a gentler, safer, more rational and more predictable alternative to mutation breeding--an organic technology, in fact. Instead of random mutations, scientists could now add the traits they wanted.
That organic wheat you just ground up into whole wheat flour so you can make some good wholesome whole wheat bread, and that organic red grapefruit you just had for breakfast - they couldn't be genetically modified organisms - GMOs - because organic groups have ruled from on high that GMOs are not "natural". But they are very likely the result of massively mutating the genetic material of a plant with radiation, a technique called mutation breeding.
In mutation breeding, a lot of bad genetic mutations happen along with the rare one that you want to keep. It takes a lot of back-crossing, which takes a lot of time, to eliminate as much of the bad stuff as possible without losing the one good trait you worked so hard to isolate.
GMOs, on the other hand, are created faster and with more precise knowledge of the genetic changes being made using recombinant DNA techniques. The introduced genetic instructions are known. The goal is to get a small piece of DNA with a known trait successfully introduced into the plant to cause it to express the unique amino acid sequence that it is designed to produce. Compared to mutation breeding, recombinant DNA technology is fast and precise.
Why mutation breeding - much more of a Frankenfood than any GMO - is acceptable to the organic oligarchy but not GMOs is a mystery of the universe. Maybe one day they'll figure out at way to explain it that makes sense.
Then again...
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