Abstract
Genetically modified (GM) crops have been commercially grown for two decades. GM maize is one of 3 species with the highest acreage and specific events. Many countries established a mandatory labeling of products containing GM material, with thresholds for adventitious presence, to support consumers’ freedom of choice. In consequence, coexistence systems need to be introduced to facilitate commercial culture of GM and non-GM crops in the same agricultural area. On modeling adventitious GM cross-pollination distribution within maize fields, we deduced a simple equation to estimate overall GM contents (%GM) of conventional fields, irrespective of its shape and size, and with no previous information on possible GM pollen donor fields. A sampling strategy was designed and experimentally validated in 19 agricultural fields. With 9 samples, %GM quantification requires just one analytical GM determination while identification of the pollen source needs 9 additional analyses. A decision support tool is provided.
Highlights
Of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM products resulted in economic losses
The authors developed the Global Index (GI) algorithm14. It estimates the contribution of every transgenic donor field to the total pollen flow in the conventional receptor field, on the basis of the distance and flowering coincidence, i.e. the parameters described to have the highest influence on cross-pollination
We further developed this initial equation to consider receptor fields subjected to multiple possible donor fields and experimentally demonstrated that the new model accurately explains cross-pollination distribution within the receptor field in 33 conventional fields located in regions with 70–80% GM fields, which we monitored during 6 cropping seasons14,22
Summary
According to the model core (highest adventitious cross-pollination in the field border, unknown situation of possible donor fields), K3 should be determined from analysis of multiple samples representing the whole field perimeter. Such comprehensive sampling was unavoidable since identification of the GM pollen source (i.e. the neighboring field(s) contributing to adventitious GM presence in the field under study) was imperative for liability issues. The relative AR and AC areas depend on the field shape and represent its resistance to cross-fertilization by external pollen) Deduction of this equation is developed in the Methods section and Fig. 3. The approximation [4] is exact for a square field and slightly deviates as a function of the field shape:
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