Horizontal Gene Transfer May Cause Natural 'Genetic Modification' in Sweet Potatoes

While searching the genome of the sweet potato, scientists discovered that all sweet potatoes contain DNA from Agrobacterium.  This bacterial DNA is thought to be a natural form of genetic modification. The article continues to to say that unlike human-made genetic modifications, we do not fully understand the effects that this foreign genetic information has on the phenotype of the sweet potato.

I think that more research should be done in order to see the effects that this foreign DNA has on the sweet potato.  The most obvious way to go about ding this would be made a human-made genetic modification and remove parts of, or the entire piece, of foreign DNA from the sweet potato and see what effects take place on the resultant GMO sweet potato.