Any information about GMO is difficult to find. These are trade secrets of the plant breeder. ... I don't have the time to search the entire net and all my archives.
First, I am not asking you to find anything. I am asking you to cite the source of the quote you used. When you quote something, tell us where it came from.
For example, let's say I quoted the following material:
- "By 1962, 10 years after Vogel first supplied seed of the Norin 10 semi-dwarf progeny to Borlaug, two high-yielding semi-dwarf Norin 10 derivatives, Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62, were released for commercial production."
Who said that? When? And where? And what was the immediate and surrounding context? These questions cannot be answered unless I cite the source of that quote:
- Miriam Shindler, "From East Asia to South Asia, via Mexico: How One Gene Changed the Course of History," International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), January 3, 2016, www.cimmyt.org
When you provide a quote—like you did and continue to do—show me and the readers where you pulled it from, using a link at the very least.
Note: You said, "That source is an internet search. Take it or leave it." This leads me to suspect that the quoted material is coming from an AI-generated snapshot of the answer to your search query that gets included at the top of your results. If that is the case, then I must tell you that I cannot trust it—and neither should you—because AI models have a habit of going out of their way to please the user, even if it requires making stuff up (called "hallucinating" in the industry).
Second, your quoted material was wrong. Let's remind the readers of what the quote said:
Point mutations have been induced in dwarf wheat. These mutations, often induced by mutagens like ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) or gamma-ray irradiation, can alter genes involved in gibberellin (GA) biosynthesis or signaling pathways, leading to reduced plant height. Specifically, mutations in genes like Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b, which are DELLA genes, have been linked to dwarfism in wheat.
Since this was likely an AI-generated summary of the answer to whatever question you asked, it's practically impossible to evaluate because it doesn't occupy a larger context. It sounds to me like it's saying this dwarfing allele was the product of a chemical or physical mutagen, either ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) or gamma-ray irradiation.
However, both of these were not in use until three decades or more after the Japanese had already created the Norin series of dwarf wheat. Gamma-ray irradiation began to be used as a mutagenic mechanism from the 1940s onward (thanks to cobalt-60), and EMS started to become widely used beginning in the 1960s. Pay attention to those dates and ask yourself, "How long has dwarf wheat been around?"
It was near the turn of the 20th century that Japanese breeders began to focus on systematic wheat improvement. They identified short landraces like
Shiro-Daruma as promising for reducing lodging, a variety whose origin may reach to Korea (Kihara 1983, 16-18; Evans 1998, 138). By 1910, white and red strains are listed (
Shiro-Daruma and
Aka-Daruma, respectively).
Now, remember when I mentioned the Japanese crossing
Daruma with
Fultz in the early 1900s? It was the first documented step toward Norin 10; his name was Gonjiro Inazuka and it was 1917. So, roughly three decades before those mutagenesis protocols were being used, this dwarfing allele was already being exploited by breeders. And then
Fultz-Daruma was being crossed with
Turkey Red around 1925 to create Norin 10, which was registered in October of 1935.
And, it bears repeating (so as not to be missed), this was traditional Mendelian breeding, not mutagenesis protocols. Notice that all of this was before 1940, after all. And I haven't even included the fact that there are records of this dwarf wheat going back further, such as 1873 (Dalrymple 1978, 11):
In 1873, Horace Capron, former U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture who headed an agricultural advisory group to Japan, wrote that "the Japanese farmers have brought the art of dwarfing to perfection." He noted that "the wheat stalk seldom grows higher than 2 feet, and often not more than 20 inches." The head was short but heavy. The Japanese claimed that the straw had been so shortened" that no matter how much manure is used it will not grow longer, but rather the length of the wheat-head is increased." Capron noted that "on the richest soils and with the heaviest yields, the wheat stalks never fall down and lodge." (Horace Capron. "Agriculture in Japan." Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1873, Washington. 1874. p. 369.)
I'm sorry, ma'am, it was a naturally-occurring mutation—and it is heritable, viable, and persists across generations.
I have made a clear and solid argument with ample sources. I am content to allow the readers to judge between us for themselves.
"Dwarf wheat varieties, especially those bred for semi-dwarfism (like those used in the Green Revolution), typically require controlled breeding to maintain their desirable traits when grown from seed. This is because the semi-dwarfing genes, while beneficial for yield and lodging resistance, can be affected by natural segregation and recombination during sexual reproduction."
It is true that plants will produce genetic variation if they're allowed to cross-pollinate freely with other varieties. If a farmer doesn't control pollination, genes can be diluted or replaced by crossing with tall wheat or other cultivars. This is true for all pure lines, not just dwarf wheat.
However, that doesn't mean the dwarfing genes are unstable inside the line. (They aren't.) It just means you have to prevent contamination from outside pollen.
The dwarfing alleles in Norin 10 and its derivatives are point mutations in a DELLA protein that reduces gibberellin sensitivity. Once a variety carrying them is homozygous and self-pollinating, it is a pure-line cultivar—genetically stable across generations
if grown in isolation from other varieties.
Unlike F
1 hybrids (e.g., canola), you can save seed from dwarf wheat and get the same plant next year. No segregation problem occurs within the pure line because there is no hidden heterozygosity.
So, if you really need an answer acceptable to you to that question, do your own research.
What I need is a source. You keep handing me one quote after another, but never a source for any of them—the only thing I had asked for.
Look over this response to you that I have written here. I have provided all the sources of the material I am using and quoting.
That is what I am asking of you. When you quote something, show where it came from.
I have answered you. If you refuse to accept the answer, so be it.
I can't refuse to accept something you haven't provided.
References:
Dana G. Dalrymple,
Development and Spread of High-Yielding Varieties of Wheat and Rice in the Less Developed Nations, 6th ed., Foreign Agricultural Economic Report no. 95 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of International Cooperation and Development, in cooperation with U.S. Agency for International Development, 1978). (
PDF link)
L. T. Evans,
Feeding the Ten Billion: Plants and Population Growth (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Gonjiro Inazuka, “Norin 10, a Japanese Semi-Dwarf Wheat Variety,”
Wheat Information Service, no. 32 (March 1971): 25–30, Biological Laboratory, Kyoto University.
Hitoshi Kihara, "Origin and History of ‘Daruma,’ a Parental Variety of Norin 10," in
Proceedings of the Sixth International Wheat Genetics Symposium (Kyoto, Nov. 28–Dec. 3, 1983), ed. Sadao Sakamoto (Kyoto: Plant Germ-Plasm Institute, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University, 1983), 13–19 (
DOC link).
Takeo Matsumoto, "Norin 10: A Dwarf Winter Wheat Variety,"
Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly 3, no. 4 (1968): 22–26 (
PDF link).
M. J. Pinthus and A. A. Levy, "The Relationship Between the Rht1 and Rht2 Dwarfing Genes and Grain Weight in Triticum aestivum L. Spring Wheat,"
Theoretical and Applied Genetics 66 (1983): 153–57,
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00265191.
Miriam Shindler, "From East Asia to South Asia, via Mexico: How One Gene Changed the Course of History,"
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), January 3, 2016 (
link).
