Bt Crops General Overview – Imaluop

Now we are going to discuss about a special products of biotechnology Bt crops general overview in which we will talk about different types of Bt crops, their advantages and disadvantages in detail.  

What are Bt Crops: 

In biological control of pests we use natural enemies instead of chemical pesticides and one of them is Bacillus thuringiensis which is a gram positive soil bacteria. Bacillus thuringiensis are useful against some insect pests because the bacteria produce a protein, cry protein which is harmful for insect pests but the protein is not harmful for humans.

This knowledge is used to prevent damage by insects because when the cry protein enters into the intestine of the insect pest then it can cause death of the insect pest and a specific gene of Bacillus thuringiensis is responsible for production of cry protein.

So we can use the gene against the insect pest and we produce different transgenic crops by entering the Bacillus thuringiensis gene for production of cry gene in crops and when the insect pest feed on the crops it cause death of the insect pest but when human take the crops as food it does not cause any problems in human.  

Without producing transgenic plants there are many other ways to utilise the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin for prevention of insect pests, one among them is to culture the Bacillus thuringiensis in a solution then spray the solution in the crops field but transgenic plants are more effective than others methods.  

Different Types of Transgenic Bt Crops: 

Bt Cotton: 

Bollworm is a major pest on cotton plants, they cause heavy economic loss in cotton cultivation but transgenic Bt cotton can prevent this economic loss. In growing cotton plants the bollworm when attacked on cotton then they become lethargic and are not able to cause many serious problems to cotton.

In the Bt cotton plant the plant cell can produce cry protein and when the bollworm tries to feed on them the cry protein present in the Bt cotton plant enters into the intestine of the bollworm and it causes their death.  

Bt Brinjal: 

In previous time farmers faced a lot of economic loss in brinjal cultivation due to lepidopteran insect pest but transgenic Bt brinjal now prevent the damage because scientists incorporate a special gene of Bacillus thuringiensis, cry 1Ac in Bt brinjal which produce a crystal protein.

When the lepidopteran insect pest feeds on brinjal plant the harmful protein enters and binds with a receptors on the plasma membrane of the insect pest and as a result pore is formed on the plasma membrane and it causes death of the insect pest. 

Major Advantages of Bt Crops: 

• Bt crops are able to prevent serious crop pests naturally so we do not have to take any extra action to control the pest and it helps to reduce pollution because we need not use any chemical pesticides from outside and the economic loss caused in previous times due to those insect pests is now converted into more economic benefits. 
• If we use chemical pesticides instead of transgenic Bt crops then the chemical pesticides cause different types of pollution and it sometimes causes damage to the helpful microorganisms present in soil and the traces of chemical present in crops is not good for human health.  
• Bt crops help the farmers to produce larger amounts of crops and it is very important for our exponentially growing population and it saves time and labour which was required extra for controlling the crop pest. 

Disadvantages of Bt Crops: 

• As there are many processes for transferring the appropriate gene to the plant to make it resistant for different crops, it is generally costlier than other varieties of crops. 
• There is a strong possibility of becoming pest resistant against Bt toxicity and then the Bt crops will not be as effective as before so then the crops will be damaged again by pests and it will cause mass damage in crops yield. 

Read More: Biotechnology in Agriculture