Talk:Transgenic plant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	MCB Portal This article is within the scope of the Molecular and Cellular Biology WikiProject. To participate, visit the WikiProject for more information. The current monthly improvement drive is Signal transduction.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale.
Top	This article is on a subject of top-importance within molecular and cellular biology.
Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · refresh) Rated "top" as controversial topic with media coverage. The article could use some figures to make content clearer. - tameeria 01:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Triticale? 2 Italian text moved from article: 3 Units 4 Rewrite 5 More General Discussion 6 Requested move 6.1 Survey 6.2 Discussion 6.3 Additional comments 7 Definition of transgenic

[edit] Triticale?

Should Triticale also be included within this article? It is the only "man-made" crop out there. By crossing wheat and rye, a new species was created with the some of the agronomic characteristics of wheat with drought and disease resistances present within rye. It also has greater yield potential then both of its parent species. A successful mixture of these genetics without the use of advanced techniques I believe is of significant merit to add. May I add this or should it be contained within a different article? (Psychro 06:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC))

---

[edit] Italian text moved from article:

Introduzione

La manipolazione genetica dei vegetali è praticata con successo da centinaia d'anni. Gli agronomi hanno sviluppato eleganti schemi d'incroci fra piante per introdurre e mantenere dei caratteri desiderati. Tuttavia, i metodi classici sono lenti ed incerti, richiedono un incrocio sessuale seguito da ripetuti reincroci tra progenie e progenitori e trasferiscono anche caratteri non voluti. Lo sviluppo delle scienze dà all'uomo un'arma in più contro la selezione naturale, permettendogli di fare quello che faceva una volta ma con cognizione di causa. Sono molte le tecniche che oggi si usano per ottenere un grande numero di piante a partire da una con particolari caratteristiche. Proprio queste caratteristiche, insieme alla velocità di propagazione delle piante, sono lo scopo delle moderne biotecnologie; fra le più ovvie troviamo:

  1. Tolleranza a stress atmosferici:
         * Temperature estreme;
         * Salinità:
         * Siccità e inondazioni;
  2. Resistenza a virus, funghi e batteri;
  3. Aumento qualità e quantità del raccolto;
  4. Tolleranza ad erbicidi;
  5. Resistenza agli insetti;

La lista è largamente incompleta, anche perche non è ancor del tutto conosciuta; Per inquadrare meglio l'argomento possiamo dire che gli incroci convenzionali chiamano in causa l'organismo intero, le tecniche di propagazione clonale si rivolgono alle cellule, l'ingegneria genetica manipola la molecola di DNA.

---

I've cleaned up a google translation with the aid of an Italian-English dictionary.

The genetic manipulation of vegetables has been practiced for hundred of years. Farmers have developed elegant methods of making crossings between plants in order to introduce and maintain desired characteristics. However, the classical methods are slow and uncertain, they demand repeated cross plantings between progeny and progenitor, and also transfer unintented characteristics.

The development of science aids man against natural selection, making it possible to make what it made once but with greater cognition. The techniques are many that today are used in order to obtain a great number of plants beginning from one with particular characteristics. Just these characteristics, with to the speed of propagation of the plants, are the scope of the modern biotechnologies; the most desired characteristics being:

1. Tolerance to atmospheric stresses:

• Extreme temperatures
• Salinità:
• Siccità and floodings;

1. Resistance to virus, fungi and bacteria
2. Increase quality and yield of the harvest;
3. Tolerance to herbicides
4. Resistance to insects

The list is incomplete. In order to frame the argument better we can say that the conventional crossings call in cause the entire organism, the techniques of clone propagation address to the cells, genetic engineering manipulates the DNA molecule.

It still needs work though, it doesn't read well, it needs the eye of someone who knows the subject, and I couldn't find a translation for some of the words. -- Jim Regan 21:59 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

---

I offered the link to the italian wikipedia

Honestly, I can't understand why - in the spirit of international cooperation - the first move in front of an article in italian language is to delete it, then second move to translate it, without even thinking of telling the italian wikipedia of this article.

Anthere, please note that I did not delete the text but rather put it on this talk page asking if somebody would translate it. I just wasn't sure what else to with it. I don't speak enough Italian to put it under a sensible title on the Italian wikipedia, and I did not want to leave it here as there is a tendency among some Wikipedians to put non-English pieces of text on the Votes for deletion. I tend to move things to talk so they can be translated without triggering any "This is the English Wikipedia" reflex. But it would probably be more polite to offer such texts to the appropriate non-English wikipedia, perhaps on their Village pump? Should we make this a policy? And by the way, should we make a list of multilingual Wikipedians who are willing and able to translate things? Respectfully, Kosebamse 21:06 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I thought about it, and went looking around the Italian wikipedia, but I was unable to do it, as I don't speak Italian; all I could do was leave a note on the Talk page of the anonymous user who started the article (the person had made edits to at least one other article, so I presumed they would have understood). I have been keeping an eye on this, though, and thought everything was sorted out after seeing the Italian link. -- Jim Regan 09:39 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

oh, that is really great then :-) I could find no trace of this on the initial contributor page since anonymous, nor on this discussion page. But I saw yesterday the article existed on the italian wikipedia now. Thanks a *lot* for doing this. I will try to help a bit to fix this one in terms of vocabulary if I can. Anthère

I spotted the thread on the mailing list, and had a mail drafted before the gremlins attacked :(

I am a gremlin ? well, why not :-) ant

To cut and paste:

There have been some attempts to clean up the translation, and the article looks to have promise as an English language article when done. I intended to do some more basic cleaning up of the text, but work intruded; I should be able to get back to it later today. I'll drop you a note when I've done what I can, maybe you can give it the finishing touches?

ok ant

So you've already answered my question :) What are the names of the articles it's been split into? I can't speak or read Italian, but I can figure out from the history which parts split where. Or maybe that's best left till the article looks more like English? -- Jim Regan

Think the article was already on the italian wikipædia all along, but the valid link to it was changed to a link to a different article, which didn't exist (but does now), for some reason. Don't know what happened to the full length article in italian, doesn't seem to be there where it was before. كسيپ Cyp 09:55 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

On the mailing list Anthere said that it was split into three articles. --Jim Regan

http://it.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Piante_transgeniche

http://it.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Piante_Transgeniche/Propagazione_Clonale

http://it.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Piante_Transgeniche/Dna_Ricombinante

date coming after this article. I hope they go phase III soon...Anthère

Oh wow, this article is wrecking my head. I'm going to have to leave this to someone who knows the subject; I didn't take biology in school, I only have the bare basics of understanding of this subject from a drunken conversation in 2000 with a guy who was introduced to me as Ireland's leading authority on GM food, and I'm afraid very little of it sunk in :) -- Jim Regan 22:49 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

---

Just read the Wikien-l-archive-thingy, and thought I'd mention that my computer-translation was by a translation program I have, not by google. (Which means the translation should be better quality, than it actually is...) And, to clarify a bit, I copied the text I* translated, from the Italian Wikipædia, the text that was pasted here in italian was much shorter, just the beginning of what I* translated from the Italian Wikipædia. (Not that any of this is relevant now, just felt like mentioning it.) (* My computer, actually, just somehow sounded odd to write that.) כסיף Cyp 20:40 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Your software must use the same engine (Systrans) as Google (and Babelfish), as the translations are identical. -- Jim Regan 21:08 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It (L&H-Power-something) is not the same as the one at http://translate.google.com/translate_t, at least, since although it makes mistakes the same places, they are slightly different mistakes. (I added all the square brackets around untranslated words, since it seemed impossible to copy/paste the colour of the words from the translation. (After translation, the untranslated words appear in red.)) כסיף Cyp 21:23 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'll try to put that italian/english mixture in french/english mixture this we, and then I suggest you put everything in good english behind me. :-) Anthère

Do, I can still manage to read some French, and at the least I can figure out the root word, so online dictionaries might be useful to me! -- Jim Regan 17:26 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi, i'm the author of the article. Sorry for the lag, i'm pretty busy... Is there any problems with translations? 16 Sett 2003 Ferdinando Pucci

Hi, i've tried out some translations, hoping that others will continue my work :-) have to run away now, bye! Ferdinando Pucci

oh ! I totally forgot about that article. Ferdinando, it should not be called transgenic plant, because quite a bit of the article is not about transgenism but very classical plant improvement. Either the article should be renamed, or some of the content should be moved under another title. What do you think ? Anthère

[edit] Units

I changed the units from km^2 back to hectares because hectares are the SI unit for land, particularly agricultural land. Also, this is a cited reference, so I did not want to change the source's units. Mmolander 05:42, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

I think that the majority of this article should be moved to Ecological impact of transgenic plants (especailly since that part of the article largely amounts to a research essay) and that the page should further discuss the creation and implementation (including saftey testing for release) of transgenic plants in the lab and the field. I will go ahead with a rewrite in a few days unless I recieve strong objections. --nixie 04:54, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More General Discussion

I think it might make sense for there to be an actual agricultural biotechnology page. Transgenic plants are not the be-all and end-all of agricultural biotechnology, I'm sure. FunnyYetTasty 11:00, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Additional comments

Oppose Detribe 13:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC) Change is trivial and does not improve clarity

[edit] Definition of transgenic

The Flavr Savr is discussed as being a transgenic plant, but in reality it isn't. This is becuase it does not contain genes from two different species. It has an antisense gene added. By the definition of transgenic given in teh first sentence of this article, it should not be discussed as a transgenic plant. I'll probably fix that in a few days. (Also, why all the italian on this page?) --Rajah 04:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)