Feral canola

A genetically modified (GM) crop has been found thriving in the wild for the first time in the United States. Transgenic canola is growing freely in parts of North Dakota...  GM crops have broken free from cultivated land in several countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan, but they have not previously been found in uncultivated land in the United States...

Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild — one modified to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide (glyphosate), and one resistant to Bayer Crop Science's Liberty herbicide (gluphosinate). They also found some plants that were resistant to both herbicides, showing that the different GM plants had bred to produce a plant with a new trait that did not exist anywhere else...

Sagers says the previous discoveries in other countries of transgenic canola populations growing outside of cultivation were often in or near fields used for commercial transgenic canola production. By contrast, her research team found feral populations of herbicide-resistant canola growing along roads, near petrol stations and grocery stores, often at large distances from areas of agricultural production...

Further studies are needed to establish whether these escaped GM canola plants have any ecological consequences. But those that have evolved resistance to both herbicides could become a weed problem for farmers...

And in a separate but related story:

An escaped strain of transgenic grass bred for golf courses could wreak havoc on native grassland species in the northwestern United States...

EPA officials stress that the scale of the problem is not yet known. "It could persist in the wild, but we wouldn't necessarily expect it to have an advantage," says Jay Reichman, one of the scientists who tracked down the grass in the wild. "Its impact remains to be seen."

The strain, bred by The Scotts Company, based in Marysville, Ohio, was engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, also known as Roundup. This means that it would be difficult to eradicate from areas where other grasses are grown and managed with herbicides