Leaving all forms of greetings, I will get straight to business by humble attempting to answer your deeply intelligent questions

:P Cell wall water transfer First of all, lets deal with the idea of water moving along the cell walls of a plant before reaching the root to be transported with the help of transpiration pull etc. to the top. From the root hairs, water travels the cortex before it gets to the xylem. The journey in the cortex is the spot which your curious mind dwells upon. There are two pathways that water can take here: 1. There are several layers of cell walls in the cortex and water can soak into these walls just like it can soak in paper; then it can seep across the root from cell to cell without ever entering the cytoplasm of the cortex cells. This is known as the apoplast pathway. 2. The water may also move into the cytoplasm or vacuole of the cortex cells by osmosis and into adjacent cells until it gets to the xylem. This is the symplast pathway ( and it seems simples too!). So you see, water doesnt just travel through the cell walls. It can also go through the cytoplasm. The importance of the two paths varies amongst plants but normally the symplast path is preferred (pun! . The apoplast pathway in normally more important when trasnspiration rates are high. I hope this answers your question on cell wall water transfers. Moving on to controversial genetics.

Disadvantages of Genetically Mutated Crops There are many reason why scientists would want to meddle with crops. I will deal with the ones which are most commonly written about in books :D Two things which are of great annoyance to farmers are weeds and insects. They slow down or even prevent crop production. Weeds are unwanted growth of plants along with the crops intended to be harvested; with them, the crops have to compete for light, water, nutrients etc. So farmers get rid of them by using herbicides. The problem is that herbicides are rarely non-selective: they kill the crops too!. So scientists genetically mutate the crops to be resistant to herbicides so farmers can spray relaxed. The problems arise because the GM crops may themselves become an agricultural weed and reproduce hybrid offsprings which can act as invasive weeds in the ecosystem: when a different kind of crop is grown, these ones may interfere. And if they pollinate to different areas, they may cause real trouble for other plants disturbing the ecosystem. However, experiments show that these dont really give them too much of invading power and by government certification of safe distance growth its not much of an issue. Herbicide resistant weeds will evolve if too much herbicide is used: though gene tech isnt really responsible for this, it kills all the hard work because if the weeds which we were against themselves got used to herbicides the whole ordeal is pointless. Now lets talk about insects. Well you know that pests can easily get to the crops during growth like Nafis gets to frech fries during its frying. So scientists make the plants insect resistant ( but they cant make burgers America Resistant ) and the problems which arise include the possibility of the evolution of resistance by the insects pests and the damaging effect on other species: some crops are such that is an insect tries to feed on them they die. If the crops reproduce far and wide ( :O ) they may be a danger to other species of insects and even marine creatures. Now that thats done it is important to mention that the cost of genetic engineering may outweigh any benefits . The same crop is not grown over the same land all year long; whenever it is re-grown the same engineering manoevre has to be repeated.

Now ill give some miscellaneous disadvantages for your advantage

The taste of GM crops may not be as good as the actual crops. Some critics say that GM crops may cause health problems. Crops are genetically modified only because it is possible; not entirely because it is NECESSARY. Possibility of the production of organic weapons. Additional costs of labeling whether a crop is GM or not. Unforeseen risks due to the complexity of the issue. New forms of allergy may develop which are more intense