Transgenic Bt Rice For Environmental Safety Evaluation

Heilongjiang Province is the northern limit of the world’s rice cultivation, andrice in cold area is of good quality, pollution-free and favored by both domestic andforeign markets. Rice is the main economic food crop in Heilongjiang province, andthe cultivation area is in the top two, only below that of corn. In1998, for the firsttime stem borer damage was found in Wuchang City and it has become the majorinsect pest in cold regions. It is of great meaning to prevent and control the stemborer damage for the stability and development of rice production in HeilongjiangProvince. Fostering the insect-resistant rice variety is the most effective way for pestcontrol. The laboratory of Molecular Biology of Heilongjiang University has createda transgenic insect-resistant early rice variety. For the future spread of this rice variety, it isnecessary to take field trials for safety evaluation.In this study, by growing the early rice variety with the bar gene and transgenicBt insect-resistant and herbicide gene in the field, we can acknowledge a preliminarystudy of transgenic Bt early rice for its environmental safety, including survivalcompetitiveness, the possibility of exogenous gene escape and microbial diversity,etc. The main research results are as follows:1Transgenic Bt cry1C*, transgenic insect-resistant and herbicide-resistant genescry2A*bar early rice strain HD1(Kongyu131(cry1C*)) and HD2(Kongyu131(cry2A*)), as well as transgenic insect-resistant super-rice strains HD3(Songjing9(cry1C*)) and HD4(Songjing9(cry2A*)) have gained successful cultivation.2Under the climate and rice cultivation conditions of Harbin Province, andcompared with the receptor, the transgenic rice HD1, HD2, HD3and HD4do nothave significant change in seeds’ winter hardiness as well as survivalcompetitiveness compared with weeds.3Under the rice cultivation conditions in cold area, the escaping distance of theexogenous gene of Bt rice through pollen is about5m, and the escape rate is low. Nosign of escaping transgene is found at or beyond the distance of10m.4In Harbin, the microbial diversity does not have significant change after theshort-term cultivation of transgenic Bt rice.