Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

If I were to cross pollinate two round up ready crops and then plant the the offspring(seed). Would the offspring be round up tolerant as well.

I hope we have some botanists familiar with GMO technology to answer this. This question has been the center of man y lawsuits in the last few years, where pollen from a GMO field blew over to an adjacent farm and the crops on that farm had characteristics of the GMO plants. Monsanto, the patent holder on the GMO technology then sued the farmers, claiming they stole the pollen and didn't pay for the technology, etc. Ugly. People say a story has two sides but this one seems to have more than that (Google "Percy Schmeiser" and se what comes up).

I think the short answer to your question is "yes", but it probably also depends on the specific plants.

Howard

Thank you @HowardE

I think it depends on the genotype, i.e. the alleles. If the plant from where the pollen is taken is homozygous for the tolerance and the recipient plant is also homozygous for the tolerance, then it is also likely in the offspring plants. But if either or both of the plants are heterozygous and this depending on the genotype, then there is a possibility that the offspring plants may not inherit or may not display the phenotype for tolerance. There are also environmental factors, in addition to genetics, that affect a plant's ability for tolerance such as for drought tolerance.