On the Edge Most Americans Remain Confused About GMOs GMO Answers, an initiative committed to responding to consumer questions about how their food is grown, released the findings of a new YouGov survey finding that a majority of Americans aren’t confident they definitely know what genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are, and that this lack of knowledge may be driving overall uncertainty and discomfort. GMO Answers conducted the survey to better understand public perceptions of GMOs and launches the findings on the first day of “Get to Know GMOs Month,” an annual event held in October to encourage conversations about GMOs, explain new advancements, and dispel common misconceptions around the health and safety of GMOs. The survey’s key findings include: •  69% of consumers are not confident they know what GMOs are, and less than a third of Americans (32%) say they are comfortable with the use of GMOs in their food products. •  Roughly 3 in 5 Americans are interested in learning more about GMOs. • 74% want to learn more about GMOs’ impact on their overall health. •67% are interested in learning more about the overall safety of GMOs. •  43% of consumers believe that food (in general) sold in the US is safe for consumption, meaning there is widespread distrust as a whole when it comes to food production, despite the U.S. having the safest food supply in the world. Creating a New Crop Through Genome Editing For the first time, researchers from Brazil, the U.S. and Germany have created a new crop from a wild plant within a single generation using CRISPR-Cas9. Starting with a "wild tomato" they have, at the same time, introduced a variety of crop features without losing the valuable genetic properties of the wild plant. The researchers chose Solanum pimpinellifolium as the parent plant species, a wild tomato relative from South America, and the progenitor of the modern cultivated tomato. The wild plant's fruits are only the size of peas and the yield is low – two properties which make it unsuitable as a crop. On the other hand, the fruit is more aromatic than modern tomatoes, which have lost some of their taste due to breeding. Moreover, the wild fruit contains more lycopene. Specifically, the researchers produced the following modifications in comparison with the wild tomato: the fruit is three times larger than that of the wild tomato, which corresponds to the size of a cherry tomato. There is ten times the number of fruits, and their shape is more oval than the round wild fruit. This property is popular because, when it rains, round fruits split open faster than oval fruits. The plants also have a more compact growth. Global Warming Will Have Us Crying in What's Left of Our Beer In a study published in Nature Plants, researchers from the University of California, Irvine and other institutions report that concurrent droughts and heat waves, exacerbated by anthropogenic global warming, will lead to sharp declines in crop yields of barley, beer's main ingredient. The economic models used in the paper demonstrated strong potential for price surges in some beer-loving countries, and whether or not people get to enjoy a frosty mug of suds will likely depend on their willingness to pay. Co-author Steven Davis, UCI associate professor of Earth system science said the research team modeled scenarios based on current and expected future levels of fossil fuel burning and carbon dioxide emissions. In the worst case, parts of the world where barley is grown – a including the northern Great Plains, Canadian prairies, Europe, Australia and the Asian steppe – were projected to experience more frequent concurrent droughts and heat waves, causing declines in crop yields of three to 17 per cent. Only 17 per cent of the globe's barley is used in brewing. The study further outlines how different regions of the world will be affected, determining that prices will go up the most in such wealthy, beer-loving countries as Belgium, Canada, Denmark and Poland. 136 www.seed.ab.ca | Advancing Seed in Alberta