Merri bee, this article, like your previous comment, is largely copied Julie Newman's press release. Even to the point of copying the quotes exactly out of the press release. Sometimes lazy journalists will do such things and won't bother to check whether the press release is correct or not.

I have provided links to the NVT data, it is publically available and everyone can check, sadly Heather Bennett didn't bother to do so.

I don't know anything about 400 scientists reporting to the UN on GM crop yields, so I can't answer that question.

Agronomist, your usual defence tactic is to slam anyone that tells the truth.
The press release I put out was in response to the exact wording of the announcement of trial data results from GRDC on the ABC Country Hour.

http://www.nvtonline.com.au/state-news-vic.htm
5 trials were done, 3 failed - 2 to drought and 1 to spraydrift
4 GM varieties were pitted against 24 non-GM varieties in Horsham, Vic and 4 GM against 22 non-GM vareties in Forbes, NSW.
The Best GM varieties and the Best Non-GM varieties were:

Victoria: 0.73tonne/ha GM versus 0.82tonne/ha for non-GM. 12% less yield when a 14% increase in yield is required to pay for the additional "discounted" costs. This is a loss of income amounting to 26% of the value of the harvested crop. (the worst yield for GM was only .52tonne/ha which would equate to 48% less income.)

New South Wales: Best yield of GM was 1.15tonne/ha versus best non-GM yield of 1.26tonne/ha when a 10% higher yield is required for the additional "discounted" costs. This equates to a loss of 20% less income.

The pro-GM camp are getting desperate. One of the comments was that it was not fair as GM is using old varieties when this is not true. The GM RR gene was added to new top yielding non-GM hybrids and still couldn't perform.

Agronomically and economically, GM canola does not stack up. The grass control that is considered the best "advantage" of GM canola is achieved by the application of trifluralin, not glyphosate as a residual grass control is needed and RR only allows farmers to spray glyphosate from the 2-6 leaf stage.

Truth too hot to handle?

"The failure of GM to increase yield potential was emphasised in 2008 by the United Nations International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report [47]. This report on the future of farming, authored by 400 scientists and backed by 58 governments, concluded that GM is not likely to contribute significantly to increasing yield potential in the future."
Theres another direct quote for you Agronomist, and like last time Ive put it in quotation marks.
I can stare at the trial results for hours, it wont do me any good as I dont know a GM from a non GM variety and they are not indicated on the chart. I shall have to rely on the interpretations of those in the know at the ABC Country Hour, and Julie Newman, both reputable, reliable sources.
Sorry Ive started you off again , I'm sure every one has better things to do than to answer the claims of a professional liar like yourself . Sorry your GM has been a flop, but you can let go and move on now .Strange that your Lancet link is still saying "try again later" after months.Sad the lengths some people will go to isnt it.

Merri bee, Saturday, 13 December
Could you please tell me exactly what crops I might be growing on my organic farm that have been derived from radiation caused genetic mutations.I have never heard of this.

Pundit replies

Radiation mutagenesis was used to create the durum wheat variety Creso used to make pasta in Italy, the rice variety Amaroo sown to more than 60% of the rice area in Australia, and the Rio Star ® grapefruit popular in the USA (Ahloowalia and others 2004, IAEA 2008, McHuhan 2000;NAS 2004). The extensive changes to chromosomes caused by radiation treatment are thoroughly documented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (NAS 2004, Shirley and others 1992) and are known to be similar to those caused by insertion of transgenic DNA (Cellini and others 2004; Gorbunova and Levy 1999).

More than 3000 radiation induced varieties are released commercially.

Radiation is changing DNA all the time. Even wild-plants will have DNA scrambled by it. all crops will be scrambled in their DNA to some extent.Thats life.

Key references
Ahloowalia BS, Maluszynski M, Nichterlein K (2004) Global impact of mutation-derived varieties. Euphytica 135:187–204. Reports at least 2250 mutant varieties of crop have been released. Most frequently they were created by gamma rays or X-rays. Both are known to scramble DNA.

IAEA (2008). Mutant plants can boost yields, resistance: IAEA conference (Vienna, Austria). Reports that some 3000 mutant plant varieties from 170 plant species are catalogued by the International Atomic Energy Agency. http://www.terradaily.com/2007/080812145530.x6uv6k68.html accessed Dec 11 2008

Gorbunova V and Levy AA (1999) How plants make ends meet: DNA double-strand break repair Trends in Plant Science 4(7):263-269. Plants have particularly error-prone mechanisms that join together bits of broken chromosomes. These repair mechanisms scramble the DNA at the site at which the chromosomes are joined together during their repair. Radiation is a common cause of broken chromosomes and triggers these processes which scramble plant DNA and cause mutations.

The RR GM varieties in the trials are:
GT61 (not a hybrid) yielded 0.59t/ha in Victoria and 1.1t/ha in NSW.
M8032 (a hybrid) yielded 0.73t/ha in Victoria and 1.15t/ha in NSW.
M8265 (a hybrid) yielded 0.63t/ha in Victoria and 1.15t/ha in NSW.
46Y20 (a hybrid) yielded 0.52t/ha in Victoria and 1.13t/ha in NSW.
The highest yielding non-GM was 0.82t/ha in Victoria and 1.26t/ha in NSW.
Certainly does not show that GM yields anything like the promotions in all the economic reports.

Mutagenesis is quite different to GM. With mutagenesis, the mutation does not invade the DNA by forcing a gene into it. Mutation is stimulated by artificial means but the mutated gene/s are controlled by the plant. With GM, the plant has no control over the genes and scientists express concern that the plant reacts against the invasion by releasing toxins.

GM is considered significantly different enough to allow a patent over the living organism and its progeny. I am sure there would not be such a push for GM if this patent was removed.

"Mutagenesis is quite different to GM. With mutagenesis, the mutation does not invade the DNA by forcing a gene into it. Mutation is stimulated by artificial means but the mutated gene/s are controlled by the plant. With GM, the plant has no control over the genes and scientists express concern that the plant reacts against the invasion by releasing toxins."

I would disagree with all of this almost.

I mentioned in the previous comment how it is well-known that radiation mutagenesis scrambles DNA. The scientific papers I posted in the previous item document how the cell repair mechanisms insert random bits of DNA--that is force inserts-- and scramble DNA at the site of radiation mutagenesis using exactly the same cellular mechanisms that insert transgenic DNA. The mechanisms are the same and the overall results are similar. It is wrong to claim that mutation does not force DNA inserts into chromosomes when it does. They forced insertion of DNA is needed to repair broken chromosomes. Portuguese investigators have investigated rice crops and shown that the amount of disruption and insertion change caused by radiation mutation is is more than seen with transgenic crops.

I don't expect non-GM farmer to have read those papers, because they are rather demanding of knowledge about genetics, but why she keeps on making statements about genetics without checking what geneticists know I really don't understand. It's very similar to the way in which Greg Revelle the author of this online opinion piece is inventing genetic fantasies rather than asking scientists about genetics.

These examples of ignorance of modern genetics just confirms that the anti-GM movement in Australia doesnt take the trouble to get their science right.

Another scientific point is that the canola trials need to bear in mind the least significant difference or LSD. The whole design of the trial involves understanding how much background random variation there is. Differences seen between the varieties are less than the LSD. This means that they are meaningless. It is part of background variation from plot to plot