Genetic engineering trait

Genetically engineered traits are being introduced into new crops (e.g. alfalfa and strawberries) and new GM events (traits), which may have a greater impact on human health (e.g. pharmaceutical traits) and the environment (e.g. drought tolerance and plant made industrial products) are being developed. 

Friesen, L.F., Nelson, A.G. and Van Acker, R.C. (2003). Evidence of contamination of pedigreed canola (Brassica napus) seedlots in western Canada with genetically engineered herbicide resistance traits . Agron J, 95, 1342-1347. 

Keywords genetic engineering, genetic diversity, heavy metals, metal accumulation, metal tolerance, model plants, organic contaminants, quantitative trait loei... 

Duke, S.O., Scheffler, B.E., Dayan, F.E., Dyer, W.E. Genetic engineering crops for improved weed management traits. Crop Biotechnol. ACS Symp Ser 2002c 829 52-66. 

As Raoul knows, this of course is not the case for the vast majority of farmers on the Earth, where tolerance to environmental fluctuations such as cold, salt, or submergence can mean the difference between eating or not. Traits such as these are the most difficult to address using standard breeding approaches. In the future, this is where genetic engineering will likely have the most significant human impact. There are already examples of GE plants that can tolerate very cold temperatures (Thomashow 2001). 

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