Fooling Mother Nature.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Any day now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture could give the go-ahead for commercial production of one of the most controversial crops ever to emerge from bioengineering labs. It's called Roundup Ready Creeping Bentgrass, a genetically modified turf grass that is immune to glyphosate, the main ingredient of the popular herbicide Roundup.

Since this transgenic crop poses unprecedented risks for contamination, the USDA's approval process should err on the side of extreme caution. Once released, no one will be able to put this genetic genie back into its bottle.

Who thinks this crop that can't be killed is a good idea? Golf course managers, for starters. Greenskeepers at the nation's 17,000 golf courses say the genetically modified grass would allow them to blanket-spray rather than spot-apply Roundup to greens and fairways, saving tons of money. And tons of herbicide - a decrease of up to 500,000 pounds a year.

Grass seed growers are keen on the new crop, too. With individual golf courses needing hundreds of pounds of grass seed each year, the market for this miracle grass would be huge and lucrative. It could be a big plus for an important sector of Oregon's economy.

Who thinks this is a "Frankenseed" that isn't ready for prime time? Environmental organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club, rival grass seed growers and the Union of Concerned Scientists were among the hundreds of parties who submitted comments to the USDA opposing deregulation of the transgenic crop.

Lots of genetically modified crops have been approved already and are being cultivated commercially in the United States - corn, soybeans and canola, for example. But the concern about creeping bentgrass is that it breeds easily with wild relatives - at least 12 varieties of them, according to a USDA risk assessment. Some of those species are weeds, which means that if pollen from genetically modified bentgrass mixes with that of the wild species, the result will be Roundup-resistant hybrid superweeds.

A recent Oregon State University study of herbicide-resistant bentgrass appears to confirm the critics' fears. Charting gene flow in Jefferson County, where the experimental grass is growing in test plots, researchers discovered the Roundup-resistant gene in redtop, a native wild grass abundant in nature.

Once an engineered gene escapes into the natural environment, it spreads rapidly and has the potential to alter plant evolution. The Union of Concern Scientists points to a Canadian case involving an herbicide-resistant canola crop. Five years after its introduction, an unplanned hybrid emerged in Alberta that was resistant to three different herbicides. The only way farmers can kill it is by using the powerful pesticide 2,4-D, which has been identified as a carcinogen.

Supporters of Roundup Ready Creeping Bentgrass say critics are blowing the interbreeding issue way out of proportion. They argue that control of hybrids has always been necessary with conventional bentgrass and would be no more difficult with the transgenic variety. And bentgrass doesn't breed with unrelated grasses like the bluegrass or rye grass grown in Central Oregon.

Such assurances from those who would benefit financially by swift USDA approval are unpersuasive, given what we don't know about the long-term consequences of cultivating genetically modified crops. There is no compelling reason to rush this problematic product into commercial production. The USDA should withhold approval until it is satisfied that the serious scientific concerns about crop contamination are addressed.