Why is GM crops mostly limited to pest and herbicide control instead of cool shit like vastly more efficient photosynthesis, vastly more protein for staple crops like rice, supersized fruits etc etc.

>>16713680 (OP)
Size just means plant pumping fruit with more water, the same metabolism on the same plot of land in the same clime can only give you so much nitrients, and there's little point to growing fruit size with bigger plants taking more space when you can just use more smaller plants on the same territory. Not to mention that large watery fruit are a much bigger pain to harvest, transport and store.

Photosynthesis is as optimized evolutionary as it gets in terms of enzymatic processes and such, and trying to brutefotce more production with higher pigment content and such overloads moisture and thermal regulation of the plant, all while we're already losing substantial yields to bad weather every year. So in practice losing some production for robustness is usually preferrable, and old school selection is better at achieving more robust strains.

Selection is overall much better at wholistically improved strains, genetic engineering is for providing strains with traits completely alien to the whole taxa, such as resistance to exotic chemicals.

The last factor is that reducing losses on pests and diseases is actually a bigger gain in terms of yield than increased production (which would be eaten up by the same pests and diseases anyhow).

>>16713786
>Size just means plant pumping fruit with more water
It's also important to note that this extra water reduces nutrient density. For example compare the nutrient profile of blueberries vs wild bluerries. Wild blueberries have far a far superior nutritional profile and health benefits.

>>16713680 (OP)
That would require engineering, instead of the script kiddie genetic “engineering” of taking splicing a resistance gene.

>>16713680 (OP)
because glow niggers keep threatening famines with gm pests and herbs

>>16713680 (OP)
Probably just because it's pretty simple. Weeds evolve herbicide resistances on their own, you just make the crop resistant to some kill-everything herbicide and you can spray ONE herbicide (usually glyphosate) to kill everything else, and you don't have to worry about killing your crop too.
(Compared to working non-selectives around growing times and picking selectives that don't kill the crops, some of these are expensive, only target a few weeds)
Then weeds started being glyphosate resistant because you repeatedly selected for it, and you have to spray more and more.

Could photosynthesis really be "vastly more efficient"? Every plant ever has done this for aeons, you'd think it'd be pretty close to optimal by now. You'd have better luck trying to make crops grow in worse conditions.
Bigger yields, etc, actually is almost a thing already, not GMO but selective breeding that medieval peasants figured out. Fruits kinda sucked 1000 years ago, but farmers replanted the best ones each time. IIRC wheat and other crops did this too.

>>16713680 (OP)
One of the biggest issues is, in order to avoid a lengthy and expensive testing phase, any GM crop in the US needs to pass the "substantial equivalence" test.
No significant change in nutritional profile from what's already approved on the market.
No human toxins beyond what's already present in their equivalents on the market.

This is why golden rice is currently illegal in the US. Increased vitamin A means it has to go through clinical trials and nobody wants to foot the bill for that.

>>16714390
>substantial equivalence
Unless actual nutrients get replaced by water, right?

>>16714656
There's no specific exception for that. But "significant" would be the key word here.
There's a fairly wide margin of error in the nutrient density of a plant because it's a plant. Different fruits off the same plant will have different nutrient densities, overwatered or no, so they account for that.

GMO's don't have a different nutrient profile than conventional crops so they are substantially equivalent.

>>16713680 (OP)
>vastly more efficient photosynthesis
after 500M years of optimisation I think you will struggle to beat photosynthesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triticale
The hippy compound I grew up in used to feed us that crap. I was glad to see the tribbles fuck that shit up in Star Trek because it gives you Cap'n Crunch mouth but without any of the sugary goodness.