Australia approves release of a GM 'blue' rose.

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Hi,
I don't know why they bothered. It doesn't look any more blue than Blue Moon or Charles de Gaulle or Lady X or Lagerfeld or Blueberry hill etc.. Much ado about nothing and the thin edge of the GE wedge.
Barbara B

Well... it's true there are comparable 'blues' out there already but this represents a sigificant step forward in the journey towards a really blue rose and is significant in that the rose has been released here in Australia. I have grave concerns that there hasn't been enough put into their risk management (the link in the article above) and feel that it has been rushed through to help recoup some costs without taking into consideration the possible implications of doing what they have (you need to read and understand the risk management submission at the above link to know what I mean) because part of the 'foreign DNA' comes from a bacterium that imparts antibitoic resistance to the rose... I feel this is not a very resposnsible thing to do for a number of reasons and I feel they are being a little too blasé about it... so I will be watching with some interest what happens from this point onwards...

When it is BLUE or Dark Blue I will be interested, as for the bacterium, this could be of concern. I guess we could ask why they stopped roses being sent straight here from overseas because someone was doing a PhD on came across SOD (sudden Oak death) and roses MIGHT carry it to our shores.

The two things are unrelated Dave. The bacteria's DNA was incorporated, not the bacteria itself. The bacteria's DNA was added because it gave the plant resistance to a particular antibiotic. This was used to demonstrate that the propagating material (from tissue culture) was actually taking up the modified DNA because other bacteria or viruses were used as vectors to insert the transgenic DNA... in effect it was a marker to flag the success of the process. The new plants or propagules were then exposed to various antibiotics and those that showed effects were weeded out because it was assumed they did not possess the transgenic DNA whilst the ones that were unaffected were demonstrating they did possess it. The fear is this... Agrobacterium are common in soils and they can be significant horticultural threats. If agrobacterium not possessing this antibiotic resistance were to infect this plant there is a chance these DNA portions might combine with the DNA of the native agrobacterium thus contributing to the evolution of agrobacteria that are resistant to a certain anitbiotic. This is very probable given that it was bacterial in origin to start off with.

I couldn't get the image of the blue rose to come up ?

When will we ever see the blue rose here in Oz?
I love the floribunda "Blue for You" so perhaps we will have to plant more of these cultivars instead.

I get an Internal Server Error message when I try to follow the first link in the article above. I’d like to read more to understand the risk management submission, Admin. How would the DNA portions in the rose combine with the DNA of the native agrobacterium in the soil? Frankly, I’m not keen on any blue rose, just curious.

Jac ...the link has been taken down......sorry......not buy us , I better add

Are there any other articles on this subject that I can follow up on?

not to my knowledge , unless there was one before my time...have you use the search engine....?

Not yet, shall do, thanks …

How sad it is to think that we have to go to these measures to produce a rose the colour of which will probably still be out of reach. What ever happened to doing things the old fashioned way. It may take time & not in our lifetime but even if the next generation is left to carry on our trials wouldn't it be worth it. Call me old fashioned, I don't care. But I hate anything that has GM or GE attached to it.

not blue at all , almost like blue moon , I think they should leave the creation of blue roses alone . as much as we all like the idea . roses aren't supposed to be blue or black lol