1st Edition

Crop Ferality and Volunteerism

Edited By Jonathan Gressel Copyright 2005
    444 Pages 83 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    At a time when much of humanity is already but one failed harvest removed from starvation, we cannot afford to ignore any potential danger to food security, especially when that danger poses a threat to rice, the staff of life for so much of the world.

    Crop Ferality and Volunteerism brings together research pioneers from various disciplines including the crop, plant, and weed sciences to discuss crop ferality and volunteerism. The book provides thorough coverage of crop and plant molecular biology and genetics as it pertains to ferality and weeds. In an exhaustive effort to provide complete and highly useful coverage of this impending crisis, the authors go beyond the science of the problem to discuss the potential economic and social impact of crop ferality, particularly in relationship to rice.

    Readers will discover a wealth of well-organized and well-written material about the overall biology and management of weeds and weedy crops. Many examples of ferality are considered, because, as the editor states, readers will discover that there is no unified theory of ferality. Thanks to the incredible diversity of the plant kingdom, "Surprises abound in every chapter."

    The Challenges of Ferality, Jonathon B. Gressel: Domestication and Ferality. The Need for a Synthesis of Information on Plant Ferality. The Biodiversity of Feral Forms and Their Evolution. Ferality and Scientific Terminology - A Caution.
    Crops Come from Wild Plants-How Domestication, Transgenes, and Linkage Together Shape Ferality, Suzanne I. Warwick and C. Neal Stewart, Jr: Domesticated Crops, Agricultural Weeds, and Ferality. Degree of Crop Domestication. The Effects of Transgenes and Genetic Linkage
    The Ecology and Detection of Plant Ferality in the Historic Records, Klaus Ammann, Yolande Jacot, and Pia Rufener Al Mazyad: Reversion of Crops to Wild Types. Historical Accounts of Feral Crops
    Feral Beets - With Help from the Maritime Wild? Ulrich Sukopp, Matthias Pohl Sarah Driessen, and Detlef Bartsch: History of Beet Domestication. Hybridization and Gene Flow in Beet. Ferality in Beet Connected to the Bolting Gene "B. Potential Impact of Transgenes on Ferality.
    Volunteer Oilseed Rape - Will Herbicide-Resistance Traits Assist Ferality? Linda M. Hall, M. Habibur Rahman, Robert H. Gulden, and A. Gordon Thomas: Brassica rapa and B. napus Origins and Biology. Biological Characteristics Influencing Weediness. Presence and Persistence of Volunteer B. Rapa and B. napus.
    Incestuous Relations of Foxtail Millet (Setaria italica) with Its Parents and Cousins Henri Darmency: Domestication of Foxtail Millet. Volunteers or Weedy Hybrid Derivatives? Polyploid Species of the Foxtail Millet Gene Pool.
    Urban Ornamentals Escaped from Cultivation, Ingo Kowarik: Urban Ornamentals - A Heterogeneous Species Pool. Invasions by Ornamentals. How Many Species Will Spread? Underlying Processes. Can We Predict the Spread of Introduced Ornamentals?
    Sorghum and Its Weedy Hybrids, Gebisa Ejeta and Cécile Grenier: The Sorghum Taxa. Weedy Sorghums in Agroecosystems . Gene Flow among Sorghums.
    Multidirectional Gene Flow among Wild, Weedy, and Cultivated Soybeans, Bao-Rong Lu: Soybean and Its Weedy and Wild Relatives. Possible Consequences of Gene Flow from Transgenic Soybean.
    Maize and Soybeans - Controllable Volunteerism without Ferality? Micheal D.K. Owen: Current Maize and Soybean Production. Origin of Maize and Soybeans. Extent of Volunteerism in Maize and Soybeans. Volunteers Need Not Be in Fields - Identity Preservation and Derived Traits.
    Wheat Domestication and Dedomestication - What Are the Odds? Sharon Ayal and Avraham A. Levy: Wheat Domestication. Genomics of Wheat Domestication. Assessing the Odds of Dedomestication. Semiwild Wheat from Tibet - A Case of Dedomestication?
    Feral Rye - Evolutionary Origins of a Weed, Jutta C. Burger and Norman C. Ellstrand:The Many Faces of Weedy Rye. History of Domestication. The Case of Naturalized Feral Rye in the Western U.S.
    Can Feral Radishes Become Weeds? Allison A. Snow and Lesley G. Campbell: Early Domestication. Modern Radish Varieties with Edible Roots. Dedomestication and Weed Evolution in Radishes. Exoferality via Crop-Weed Hybridization.
    Ferality - Risks of Gene Flow between Sunflower and Other Helianthu s Species, André Bervillé, Marie-Hélène Muller, Bernard Poinso, and Hervé Serieys: Botany and Economic Importance of Helianthus Species. Studies on Helianthus annuus. Studies on Jerusalem Artichoke . Modeling the Impact of Gene Flow and Fate of Wild Relatives. Weediness, Ferality, and Invasiveness in Helianthus.
    Issues of Ferality or Potential for Ferality in Oats, Olives, the Vigna Group,Ryegrass Species, Safflower, and Sugarcane, André Bervillé, Catherine Breton, Ken Cunliffe, Henri Darmency, Allen G. Good, Jonathan Gressel, Linda M. Hall, Marc A. McPherson, Frédéric Médail, Christian Pinatel, Duncan A. Vaughan, and Suzanne I. Warwick: Oats. Olives. Vigna in Asia. The Ryegrass Complex. Safflower - Ferality in a Plant-Made Pharmaceutical Platform. Sugarca.
    Asian Rice and Weedy Rice - Evolutionary Perspectives, Duncan A. Vaughan, Paulino L. Sanchez, Jun Ushiki, Akito Kaga, and Norihiko Tomooka: The Genus Oryza in Relation to Rice. Rice Domestication . Diversification of Rice. Case Studies.
    The Damage by Weedy Rice - Can Feral Rice Remain Undetected? Bernal E. Valverde: Distribution and Diversity of Weedy Rice. Agronomic and Market Impact of Weedy Rice. Field Management of Weedy Rice. The Spread of Weedy Rice. Going Undetected.
    Properties of Rice Growing in Abandoned Paddies in Sri Lanka, Buddhi Marambe: Land Use in Rice Cultivation in Sri Lanka. Field Observations of Morphological Characteristics.
    Coexistence of Weedy Rice and Rice in Tropical America - Gene Flow and Genetic Diversity, Zaida Lentini and Ana Mercedes Espinoza: Introduction and Dissemination of Rice in the Americas. Oryza Species in Tropical America . Coexistence of Weedy Rice with Domestic Rice in Fields. Rice-Weedy Rice Gene Flow in Tropical America.
    Gene Movement between Rice (Oryza sativa) and Weedy Rice (Oryza sativa) - a U.S. Temperate Rice Perspective. David R. Gealy: Introduction to U.S. Temperate Rice Production. Weed Problems - The Red Rice Dilemma. Herbicide-Resistant Cultivars Background. Outcrossing Causes, Rates, and Consequences. Phenotypic Traits of Rice/Red Rice Hybrids in the U.S. Backcrossing Considerations. Dormancy, Shattering, and Other Keys to Domestication/Dedomestication. Anecdotal Evidence of Gene Flow between Red Rice and Rice in the U.S.? Prospects for Volunteerism.
    Modeling Population Dynamics to Overcome Feral Rice in Rice, Francesco Vidotto and Ald o Ferrero: Spread and Importance of Weedy Rice in Europe. Weedy Rice Biology in Relation to Population Dynamics. Modeling Weedy Rice Infestation Dynamics. Running the Model
    Molecular Containment and Mitigation of Genes within Crops - Prevention of Gene Establishment in Volunteer Offspring and Feral Strains, Jonathan Gressel and Hani Al-Ahmad: Needs for Preventing Gene Flow and Overcoming Ferality. Methods for Precluding Feral Traits from Becoming Predominant in Populations. Special Cases Where Transgenic Mitigation Is Needed - Special Genes.
    Assessing the Environmental Risks of Transgenic Volunteer Weeds, Alan Raybould: What Is a Risk Assessment? Tiered Testing and Risk Assessment. General Requirements for Assessing Risks from Volunteer Trangenic Crops. Assessment Endpoints. Hazards, Exposure, and Risks of Volunteer Transgenic Crops.. Hazard Assessments.. Exposure Assessments. Acceptable Risks and Trigger Values.
    Regulation Should Be Based on Data, Not Just Models, Richard Roush: Trends in Regulation - Estimating Risk. Types of Models.
    Epilogue, Ervin Balázs: Good Agricultural Practice. Volunteerism. Ferality.
    Index

    Biography

    Jonathan Gressel

    "The publication of this book is, therefore, timely as it attempts to address the knowledge gap surrounding the impacts and consequences of ferality. …provides a wealth of valuable information on crop and weed science, plant molecular biology and genetics that relates to volunteer and feral plants. The articles are extensively referenced and are illustrated by black and white diagrams, graphs, and photographs. The book is very informative and deserves our attention. …will be a useful primer for undergraduates, post-graduates, researchers, and regulators who wish to study the interactions between crops, ferals, and wild relatives. It will also assist their understanding of the processes that underpin crop domestication and de-domestication. … will also stimulate researchers to investigate the contribution of gene flow to the dynamics of feral populations in a wide range of crop plants."
    - Jonathan Davey, Annals of Botany, 99:205-207, 2007

    "…an intriguing and important publication on an increasingly critical aspect of contemporary crop production. …this 445-page work provides information that is otherwise unavailable in a concentrated form to the scientific community, and serves as a step toward learning whether transgenic crops pose ferality issues differing from non-transgenic cultivars."
    -IPM net News, #142, Oct/Nov. 2005

    "…serves to further our understanding of the intricate interactions within the wild-weed-crop complex on a crop-by-crop basis for a large number of crops cultivated worldwide. …The book is quite comprehensive and concentrates primarily on field crops via 24 chapters having formats ranging from research articles to reviews with black and white illustrations and photos. …The book draws attention not only to the idiosyncratic nature of each crop system and the effects of potential novel traits but also to the dramatic lack of scientific information in this field. …This book is an excellent resource for researchers as well as graduate and undergraduate students interested in the ontogeny, impact, and interaction of weeds. It would also be a useful reference to anyone wanting to learn more about the processes of domestication and dedomestication within agriculture, and how they may relate to the increased cultivation of transgenic plants."
    -Laurian S. Robert, Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, Crop Science, April, 2006

    "The chapters take a unique form of containing pre-workshop, peer-reviewed information together with transcribed or integrated information from workshop discussions. This format lends itself to a balanced discussion that addresses concerns of optimists and cynics of transgenic technology and the agricultural, economic, and ecological impacts of ferality. …Due emphasis is given to the recognition that the problem of crop ferality and volunteerism is not unique to transgenic crops. …The authors largely support invocation of the 'precautionary principle.' This applies to gene flow from transgenic crops into nature and crop ferality in general. …this compilation addresses crop ferality in a broad-ranging, yet thorough manner. It is a useful general resource for an area of research that has been scantily documented for crop plants."
    -Beronda L. Montgomery, Michigan State University, Economic Botany, Vol. 60

    "This is an interesting and timely book about the ways that crop plants go wild. It is an excellent compendium of information on the origins of crop plants and on their genetics in the wild under domestication. The range of crops discussed in detail is impressive rape, beet, millet, sorghum, maize, soybean, wheat, rye, radish, sunflower, and six whole chapters on rice."
    -M.J. Crawley, Imperial College, Silwood park, Crop Protection, Vol. 25, 2006

    "… a magnificent original contribution concerning one of the significant new botanical challenges of our age. …Contributors with exceptional credentials were brought together to inform one another about the world's major crops and their wild and weedy relatives. The result is both scholarly and inspirational. The usual drawback of multi-authored volumes is absent here, thanks to skillful editing and extraordinary groundwork. This book will appeal to a wide variety of readers. Those interested in theoretical aspects of plant domestication as well as persons with applied interests e.g. assessing the environmental risks of transgenic volunteer weeds, the potential economic damage by feral crops, will profit from this book. …extremely thought provoking…The book is carefully edited, and each chapter is comprehensive and well referenced."
    -Dorothea Bedigian, Missouri Botanical Gardens, St. Louis, Plant Science Bulletin, 2006