Biotech Corn Nightmare: Corn Designed To Kill Pests Is Being Devoured By Them

[bunkie]

uhoh...

Pests damaging biotech corn, getting an early start

http://www.stltoday.com/business/loc...9bb30f31a.html

Illinois corn growers are seeing problems already.

Corn that has been genetically engineered by Monsanto Co. to kill pests is being damaged by those pests instead – and it's weeks earlier than they typically show up.

“We're still early in the growing season, and the adults are about a month ahead of schedule,” explained Mike Gray, a professor of entomology with the University of Illinois. “I was surprised to see them – and there were a lot.”....

[HopsNCrops]

Sounds like bad Karma to me

[Nastarana]

The insects coming home to roost.

[HopsNCrops]

You know what they say, insects prey on diseased and sickly plants.

[Gardener5]

As to showing up earlier that could be that most everything plants etc were a month earlier because of the warm winter and spring.

[Mulligan Man]

Originally Posted by Gardener5

As to showing up earlier that could be that most everything plants etc were a month earlier because of the warm winter and spring.

Pretty bad when you have to point out the obvious for some.

[fugacity]

Yes, they have found resistant rootworms. Not they don't have superpowers. They came up early as did the plants because of the mild winter.

I love the attempt to make every bump or hiccup an unending nightmare that will spell death for farmers and just bankrupt Monsanto. Do you think that if bt crops stop working that there will never be or could never be other GMO technology that is better?

Doesn't this just mean the GMO farmers will have to use more voume of more hazardous insecticides just like their neighbors must be doing to avoid these bugs? I mean there is no reason rootworms, resistant or not, would target GMO fields. So YAY, big success against GMO equals big success for chemical insecticide.

[Gardener5]

Originally Posted by fugacity

Yes, they have found resistant rootworms. Not they don't have superpowers. They came up early as did the plants because of the mild winter.

I love the attempt to make every bump or hiccup an unending nightmare that will spell death for farmers and just bankrupt Monsanto. Do you think that if bt crops stop working that there will never be or could never be other GMO technology that is better?

Doesn't this just mean the GMO farmers will have to use more voume of more hazardous insecticides just like their neighbors must be doing to avoid these bugs? I mean there is no reason rootworms, resistant or not, would target GMO fields. So YAY, big success against GMO equals big success for chemical insecticide.

There are reasons to be concerned about bt and gmo's but things like this doesn't help the anti's side. Being most commercial corn is gmo as I understand it then yes the rootworms are going to attack it more or appear that way because there is more of it. This professor should have known things like this and mentioned it.