I've a semantics question, this is for serious. Depending upon the circumstances could a mule be a ''naturally occurring GMO''.

How about wheat?

albert, As for the mule, it is a nearly natural hybrid cross, but still, the genetics are different enough that the mule is basically sterile.

Seedless watermelons are not made by introducing new material, but are made by manipulating the chromosome numbers so it cannot make the seeds fertile...and therefore the seeds don't develop much.

I don't think wheat is easily changed naturally. It has existed for thousands of years without much change.

This post was edited by wayne_5 on Thu, Jan 10, 13 at 12:31

Twenty to thirty years ago, I read in a journal that the first fertile mule had been born.

Now I have looked it up on the net,it WAS a big thing back then, but there seems to be no information out there.

Wheat is a natural genetically modified organism, but the wheat that is resistant to certain weed killers is a Genetically Engineered Organism. Most all of the plants that we have today are the result of genetic modification, just as we all are. Normal plant breeding is genetic modification and not Genetic Enginering even though the proponents of Genetic Engineering will try to tell you what they do is thae sme thing.

Wayne "Seedless watermelons are not made by introducing new material, but are made by crippling a chromesome so it cannot make the seeds fertile...and therefore the seeds don't develop much. " .... no, because they existed long before the ability to cripple genes was developed.

The seedless versions are not genetically modified, as some might assume, but are hybrids that have been grown in the United States since the middle of the 20th century. Breeders match the pollen from a diploid plant, one that contains 22 chromosomes per cell, and the flower of a tetraploid plant, which contains 44 chromosomes per cell. The result is a triploid with 33 chromosomes that is incapable of producing seeds. (The tiny white ones you sometimes find are seed coats, where a seed did not mature.) Breeders call it the mule of the watermelon world.

Lazygardens, That is just cool information there! Thanks.

A lot of the tetraploids are mutated using some very strong DNA/chromosome busting/mutating agents...such as colchicine (also used to treat gout and some other human conditions) and even radiation (though mostly chemical mutations have been more popular).

Luckily the "bad/anti-science" scare-mongering crowd doesn't have a general knowledge about this...which is why we're not being scared against eating "mutant radioactive watermelons."

Similar processes are used in ornamental horticulture to produce things like those silly (imo) huge as all hell lillies that are becoming more popular. In this case, the increased cell size from the extra chromosomes make the blooms/flowers much bigger.

Does Tulip breaking virus effect a naturally occurring GMO?

"Off" color expression on a genetic level may have some history in viral infection and RNA being taken up into the genetic makeup of a plant, but for the most part these kinds of chimeras are genetically passed without a virus present. A lot of these are assumed to come from general mutations in chromosome division, and this may be a result of transgenetic viral infection at some point in the plant's life, but it's not the only way this can occur and it can occur without any external inputs.

Most of the genetic information passed sexually (or kept alive asexually) are present in domain levels of genetic expression. The "fish pepper" can grow variegated naturally from seed thanks to it's genetics, especially in the L2 level of expression.

Long story short...a virus could effect how a plant expresses color if it somehow passes on genetic information that's "good" without passing on the "bad/harmful" parts of the virus. This would be a form of transgenetic expression and it's not the only way this can occur. It could also occur within the plant, itself, without any external forces on the plant passing mutated genetics.