Blog #11: Ensuring Isolation from GE crops

At the moment the only vegetable plant grown in our area that is genetically modified is the sugar beet.  The recommendation is that you triple the isolation distances.  Navazio recommended even going 10km or more.  So if the normal isolation distance is 1-3 miles and I was to triple that it would be 3-9miles, which would be 5-14km.  If I did have a neighbor growing GM beets I would have to consider covering the beets and introducing insects into the covering for pollination, or potentially trying to grow shelter belts for long-term risk management.  Luckily we don't have any neighbors growing GM beets, so I won't have to worry about this at the time.

Comments

  1. Patrick SteinerNovember 4, 2018 at 10:34 PM

    Hi Lisa;

    It's fortunate if you don't have neighouring farms growing GE crops. As you live in Alberta and sugar beets are definately a crop that some farms grown in that province it will be important to try and figure out if that might be being grown in your vicinity, when you are producing beet seed next year. This can be hard to do, but at least asking around, driving around are some ways you can do it.

    Also, I noticed another one of your blogs mentioning that some neighbour farms grow canola. Unless they are organic farms it's likely to be GE canola. But I think you said they were 4km away (did I remember that right?) in which case the distance is too great for their to be cross-pollination. But if a closer neighbour were growing canola it might be an issue. Keep in mind that canola can cross with some brassica greens/mustards of the B. rapa and B. napa varieties, not just with other canola plants.

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  2. mary brittainNovember 7, 2018 at 11:42 AM

    Hi Lisa - your blog is well-researched. I think the fact that you're so isolated and have a lot of trees around you (again, if I remember correctly) will help considerably should you find that others are growing sugar beets. And, of course, whether they're growing sugar beets for production as opposed to for seed is a critical point :).

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