@cjd No, I mean genetic doesn't work this way. There are cultured plants - either by selection, mutation breeding or CRISPR - and there are plants that evolved in the wild. The former just don't survive in the wild - not because of some engineered terminator genes, but because they are *not fit.* Potatoes or carrots don't really need these massive roots for themselves, it's *us* who need them, and when you leave them in the wild uncultivated they will regress to feral, or disappear completely.