Hacker News Reader

> What you don't get is any hybrid vigor in the F2 generation, only the F1. There's nothing about the IP or companies that make this the case, it's fucking biology.

While that's true, it also happens to be economically convenient for the companies producing hybrid seeds, because they get recurring sales. So there's a lot of incentive to focus on finding new combinations to hybridize, while neglecting research on other options. After all, there's no guarantee that "hybrid vigor" actually improves the metrics humans care about (such as yield), rather than causing some other traits (such as leaf size) to be expressed stronger. So hybridization is just a different way to generate variants for selective breeding and a lot of its popularity is just due to the built-in DRM.

> After all, there's no guarantee that "hybrid vigor" actually improves the metrics humans care about (such as yield), rather than causing some other traits (such as leaf size) to be expressed stronger.

I can assure you in strongest terms that, yes, hybrid vigor is unique in this regard. 'Solving' hybrid vigor in a way that you can capture the benefits in a stable inbred is a multi-billion dollar innovation.

The most innovation in breeding is happening in maize. It's responsible for the most high-throughput sequencing, the most automated greenhouse metrology, the most funding in general (esp. in China). About 10-15 years ago any plant biologist was basically guaranteed funding if they put the words 'epigenetics' and 'heterosis' in their grants. Everyone figured that the recent understanding in DICER, the plant RNA Pols, DNA methylation and histone modifications, etc. would lead to a solid working model of heterosis.

It didn't happen.

Every conceivable growth and yield trait in maize has been analyzed. The qTLS have been found, the regulatory elements mapped, the chromatin environment understood, etc. It's very difficult to explain how well maize has been studied; in many ways the field is vastly ahead of any other model despite the absurd difficulty of doing genomics in such a repetitive and large genome.

The notion that leaf width/area hasn't been analyzed to death with regard to yield is laughable. Sidenote: the plant breeders have been wiping the floor with animal breeders because they naturally perform group selection in crop rows. Things like broad leaves are bad bad bad because they cost a lot and just end up shaded by their neighbors and higher leaves on the same plant. Animal breeders fail here and have been selecting for hyper-aggressive animals that fight and stress everything to all hell, much to their detriment.

The fact is that heterosis matters, and any high-performance inbred will be beat by even a moderate-performing hybrid by any reasonable metric.

Thanks for the details, but you're kind of being a dick.

> This is a perfect example of the original article's conclusion: you simply don't know what you're talking about.

I do know what I'm talking about. If you think you can talk a hybrid seed and plant a viable crop for the next year, you are mistaken.

> But! You're confusing this with sterile or semi-sterile inter-species hybrids like mules, or perhaps sterile triploids like banana. These are completely different phenomena that have nothing to do with 'hybrid corn'.

Have you ever purchased a seedless watermelon? How are you going to replant that?

> if you make your transgene products terminate, the transgenes can't spread into the environment. Unfortunately this technology was never commercialized because of reactionaries like yourself.

You use the term 'reactionary' obviously to denigrate me. Should there be genes that contaminate other's crops that would potentially lead to nonviable seeds? Of course not, that's got to be even worse for the planet.

> Final point; you're aware traditional crops have just as much IP protection as transgene crops, right? Plant variety protections last in the 15-20 year range, are respected by most international treaties, and are ubiquitous in crop breeding, ornamental flower breeding, etc. Utility patents provide slightly different protections for transgene crops, but it's not much different. Those trendy apples or 'Sunshine raspberries' at the grocery store? 100% patented. Why is your trendy beer so expensive? Patented hops. It fucking boogles the mind that anyone thinks transgenes have a thing to do with this.

Just because other aspects of agriculture fall under patent law doesn't take away from my argument against GMOs being patentable. In fact, GMOs are even worse a specific gene might be easily identified and used as a patent enforcement tool. Current law allows patent holders to come after end users. EG, if you receive seed from your supplier, and it was at some point (even unknowingly) contaminated with a specific gene through cross contamination, you could be held liable. Especially if you are a farmer and you are considered 'producing' and 'distributing' their patented works (such as selling seed stock or the actual produce).

You fail to see the other side of the issue because you are an apparent GMO zealot.