Monsanto and ­ScottsMiracle-Gro Want GM Grass in Your Yard [View All]

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Turf Warrior

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By 2001, ScottsMiracle-Gro and Monsanto had succeeded in ­creating Roundup-ready bentgrass, and in 2002 they applied to the Department of Agriculture (which regulates trans­genic crops) for a permit to sell the stuff. The companies are still waiting for that approval - but they do have a permit to grow the grass. So in 2003, ­ScottsMiracle-Gro contractors planted transgenic bentgrass on 400 acres of high-desert farmland in Jefferson County, Oregon. At this point, the two companies had spent tens of millions of dollars on the project. The goal, says a ScottsMiracle-Gro spokesperson, was to produce a good supply of seed and have it ready to sell "the day they got approval."

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When they find transgenic grass, the field scientists share its GPS coordinates with academic researchers and ScottsMiracle-Gro staff, and mark their map. Under a 2004 USDA mandate, ScottsMiracle-Gro must work to remove all known GM grass that has spread outside, or cross-pollinated with something outside, the original control area.

And spread it has: The pollen ranged up to 13 miles, perhaps farther. Despite efforts to prevent contamination - the company used tractors dedicated to the transgenic fields, stored and transported seed in closed containers, and employed other protection measures - transgenic grass migrated well beyond the boundary of the control area. Scientists, regulators, and farmers knew it would spread; grass, after all, is a wind-pollinated perennial. A few overlooked plants here and there are all it would take. "Any time you let something go to seed," Butler says, "you'll see a million where once there was one."

What was surprising, says Neil Hoffman, a risk analyst with USDA's Biotechnology Regulatory Services, was that the grass and CP4 gene traveled so far. The migration was driven by two ­factors. First, a heavy summer wind kicked up, depositing seeds onto neighboring farms and into patches of no-man's-land like drainage ditches. Second, the grass cross-pollinated with other species - red top, for instance - passing on the trait of ­glyphosate resistance. This kind of hybridization is what environmentalists most fear: Plants with a new, survival-boosting trait gain a competitive advantage that will launch them on a global ­ecological conquest, potentially disrupting whole ecosystems.

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