GMO golden rice trials fail: stunted plants, reduced grain yield - The Ecologist
▻http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2988704/gmo_golden_rice_trials_fail_stunted_plants_reduced_grain_yield.html
A new study reports unintended effects in GM golden rice, which is engineered to produce precursors of vitamin A called carotenoids.
Crossing the GM rice with the Indian variety Swarna, a step necessary for commercialization, led to a nasty surprise.
The resulting plants were stunted, showed extensive abnormalities in their growth, and had reduced grain yield, as compared with the non-GM Swarna variety.
The researchers identified several reasons for the unexpected effects, all indicative of genomic instability in offspring plants resulting from ’breeding out’ the parent golden rice with non-GMO in-field cultivars.