Hybrid Plants
Mankind has selectively bred plants for thousands of years with the aim of improving their quality and production. Experimenting with cereal crops, breeders have aimed to enhance their yield of grain, the quality of their flour, and their resistance to disease and drought. With other plants, breeders have tried to improve the perfume and color of the flowers. Others have bread plants for the sole purpose of finding medicines and anti-carcinogens. This advance in technology is great for many reasons, but we must not ignore the dangers of it either. The definition of a hybrid plant, according to Webster's Online is, "anything of mixed origin", the more accurate definition they include is, "the offspring of two animals or plants of different species..." (Mayr 1) Hybrid plants are very dangerous for the business and economy of our country and they pose a risk to our overall ecosystem that we all live in. The improvement of plants, particularly food crops, is obviously important and genetics has contributed to a better understanding of the benefits and disadvantages of particular breeding programs. Many cereal crops such as corn are now planted largely as hybrid seed, produced by out breeding b
(Mclean 1) Breeders can artificially encourage polyploidy by treating the hybrids that result from crossbreeding between species with a chemical called colchicine obtained from autumn crocuses. In 1929 practically no hybrid corn was grown among the 100 million acres of corn in the United States. If these defenses are built up too much, and the plants breed with natural plants, their offspring may become immune to many of their predators, causing their population to skyrocket. One way of doing this is to crossbreed the inbred varieties with their wild relatives, which may be resistant to viruses, insects, or drought. Most plants have a natural defense against certain predators. (Hunter 1) "Another problem is the possibility of certain people having an allergic reaction to foods because of the introduction of a gene from another plant. For example, the cactus, many shrubs, and trees have developed thorns to ward off birds and insects from consuming them. (Pollock 2) They are more at risk to get certain diseases, such as cancer and birth defects. (Tecomate 2) Recent breeding programs have led to highly inbred wheat. This makes the plants extremely susceptible to disease. If we do not want to face another epidemic to our crops do to wide spread disease, we must diversify our seed stocks by interbreeding between species, and also by monitoring the side effects of this breeding. Breeders do not have to rely on accidents.
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