Fitness of F1 hybrids between stacked transgenic rice T1c-19 with cry1C*/bar genes and weedy rice

Abstract

Compared to single-trait transgenic crops, stacked transgenic plants may be more prone to become weedy, and transgene flow from stacked transgenic plants to weedy relatives may pose a potential environmental risk because these hybrids could be more advantageous under specific environmental conditions. Evaluation of the potential environmental risk caused by stacked transgenes is essential for assessing the environmental consequences caused by crop-weed transgene flow. The agronomic performance of fitness-related traits was assessed in F1+ (transgene positive) hybrids (using the transgenic line T1c-19 as the paternal parent) in monoculture and mixed planting under presence or absence glufosinate pressure in the presence or absence of natural insect pressure and then compared with the performance of F1– (transgene negative) hybrids (using the non-transgenic line Minghui 63 (MH63) as the paternal parent) and their weedy rice counterparts. The results demonstrated that compared with the F1– hybrids and weedy rice counterparts, the F1+ hybrid presented higher performance (P<0.05) or non-significant changes (P>0.05) under natural insect pressure, respectively, lower performance (P<0.05) or non-significant changes (P>0.05) in the absence of insect pressure in monoculture planting, respectively. And compared to weedy rice counterparts, the F1+ hybrid presented higher performance (P<0.05) or non-significant changes (P>0.05) in the presence or absence of insect pressure in mixed planting, respectively. The F1+ hybrids presented non-significant changes (P>0.05) under the presence or absence glufosinate pressure under insect or non-insect pressure in monoculture planting. The all F1+ hybrids and two of three F1– hybrids had significantly lower (P<0.05) seed shattering than the weedy rice counterparts. The potential risk of gene flow from T1c-19 to weedy rice should be prevented due to the greater fitness advantage of F1 hybrids in the majority of cases.