Wed Jan 27, 2010 - By Carey Gillam
CHICAGO, Jan 27 (Reuters) U.S. wheat prices could fall by 40 percent...
CHICAGO, Jan 27 (Reuters) U.S. wheat prices could fall by 40 percent...
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
With Climate Change, Some Birds Are Taking Off for Migration Sooner; Not Reaching Destinations Earlier
ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2010)
Migrating birds can and do keep...
Three American goldfiches (l.) migrated north to Manitoba,
Migrating birds can and do keep...
(R.) Cape May Warbler
Three American goldfiches (l.) migrated north to Manitoba,
as they usually do in mid-spring of 2009. They were caught by a
highly unusual major snowstorm in May! Photos by l.p.
Tell Chevron to Clean up its Toxic Legacy
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Monday, February 1, 2010
GM Crops Facing Meltdown in the USA
ISIS Press Release 01/02/10
Major crops genetically modified for just two traits - herbicide tolerance and insect resistance – are ravaged by super weeds and secondary pests in the heartland of GMOs as farmers fight a losing battle with more of the same; a fundamental shift to organic farming practices may be the
only salvation Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Please circulate widely, keeping all links unchanged, and submit to your government representatives demanding an end to GM crops and support for non-GM organic agriculture
Artist Paul Hoppe
Two traits account for practically all the genetically-modified (GM) crops grown in the world today: herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and insect-resistance due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis).
Commercial planting began around 1997 in the United States, the heartland of GM crops, and increased rapidly over the years.
By now, GM crops have taken over 85-91 percent of the area planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US [1]] (see Table 1), which occupy nearly 171 million acres.
Table 1. GM crops grown in 2009 in the USA
The ecological time-bomb that came with the GM crops has been ticking away, and is about to explode.
HT crops encouraged the use of herbicides, resulting in herbicide-resistant weeds that demand yet more herbicides.
But the increasing use of deadly herbicide and herbicide mixtures has failed to stall the advance of the palmer superweed in HT crops. At the same time, secondary pests such as the tarnished plant bug, against which Bt toxin is powerless, became the single most damaging insect for US
cotton.
Monster plants that can’t be killed
It is the Day of the Triffids - not the genetically modified plants themselves as alluded to in John Wyndham’s novel - but “super weeds that can’t be killed” [2], created by the planting of genetically modified HT crops, as seen on ABC TV news.
The scene is set at harvest time in Arkansas October 2009.
Grim-faced farmers and scientists speak from fields infested with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate herbicide as you can afford to douse on them. One farmer spent US$0.5 million in three months trying to clear the monster weeds in vain; they stop combine harvesters and break hand tools. Already, an estimated one million acres of soybean and cotton crops in Arkansas have become infested.
The palmer amaranth or palmer pigweed is the most dreaded weed. It can grow 7-8 feet tall, withstand withering heat and prolonged droughts, produce thousands of seeds and has a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it would take over a field in a year.
Meanwhile in North Carolina Perquimans County, farmer and extension worker Paul Smith has just found the offending weed in his field [3], and he too, will have to hire a
migrant crew to remove the weed by hand.
The resistant weed is expected to move into neighbouring counties. It has already developed resistance to at least three other types of herbicides.
Herbicide-resistance in weeds is nothing new. Ten weed species in North Carolina and 189 weed species nationally have developed resistance to some herbicide.
A new herbicide is unlikely to come out, said Alan York,retired professor of agriculture from North Carolina State University and national weed expert
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCropsFacingMeltdown.php
========================================================
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
If you like this original article from the Institute of
Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving
articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation
or purchase on our website
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/donations.
ISIS is an independent, not-for-profit organisation
dedicated to providing critical public information on
cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability
and ecological sustainability in science.
If you would like to be removed from our mailing list
unsubscribe at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/unsubscribe
or email unsubscribe@i-sis.org.uk
========================================================
CONTACT DETAILS
The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 51885, London
NW2 9DH
telephone: [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20 7272 5636]
Foe email details, see http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php
MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION. FOR PERMISSION, PLEASE
CONTACT ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact2.php
only salvation Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Please circulate widely, keeping all links unchanged, and submit to your government representatives demanding an end to GM crops and support for non-GM organic agriculture
Artist Paul Hoppe
Two traits account for practically all the genetically-modified (GM) crops grown in the world today: herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and insect-resistance due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis).
Commercial planting began around 1997 in the United States, the heartland of GM crops, and increased rapidly over the years.
By now, GM crops have taken over 85-91 percent of the area planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US [1]] (see Table 1), which occupy nearly 171 million acres.
Table 1. GM crops grown in 2009 in the USA
The ecological time-bomb that came with the GM crops has been ticking away, and is about to explode.
HT crops encouraged the use of herbicides, resulting in herbicide-resistant weeds that demand yet more herbicides.
But the increasing use of deadly herbicide and herbicide mixtures has failed to stall the advance of the palmer superweed in HT crops. At the same time, secondary pests such as the tarnished plant bug, against which Bt toxin is powerless, became the single most damaging insect for US
cotton.
Monster plants that can’t be killed
It is the Day of the Triffids - not the genetically modified plants themselves as alluded to in John Wyndham’s novel - but “super weeds that can’t be killed” [2], created by the planting of genetically modified HT crops, as seen on ABC TV news.
The scene is set at harvest time in Arkansas October 2009.
Grim-faced farmers and scientists speak from fields infested with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate herbicide as you can afford to douse on them. One farmer spent US$0.5 million in three months trying to clear the monster weeds in vain; they stop combine harvesters and break hand tools. Already, an estimated one million acres of soybean and cotton crops in Arkansas have become infested.
The palmer amaranth or palmer pigweed is the most dreaded weed. It can grow 7-8 feet tall, withstand withering heat and prolonged droughts, produce thousands of seeds and has a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it would take over a field in a year.
Meanwhile in North Carolina Perquimans County, farmer and extension worker Paul Smith has just found the offending weed in his field [3], and he too, will have to hire a
migrant crew to remove the weed by hand.
The resistant weed is expected to move into neighbouring counties. It has already developed resistance to at least three other types of herbicides.
Herbicide-resistance in weeds is nothing new. Ten weed species in North Carolina and 189 weed species nationally have developed resistance to some herbicide.
A new herbicide is unlikely to come out, said Alan York,retired professor of agriculture from North Carolina State University and national weed expert
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCropsFacingMeltdown.php
========================================================
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
If you like this original article from the Institute of
Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving
articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation
or purchase on our website
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/donations.
ISIS is an independent, not-for-profit organisation
dedicated to providing critical public information on
cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability
and ecological sustainability in science.
If you would like to be removed from our mailing list
unsubscribe at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/unsubscribe
or email unsubscribe@i-sis.org.uk
========================================================
CONTACT DETAILS
The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 51885, London
NW2 9DH
telephone: [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20 7272 5636]
Foe email details, see http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php
MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION. FOR PERMISSION, PLEASE
CONTACT ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact2.php
Biotech Crops Cause Big Jump in Pesticide Use: Report
Carey Gillam - Reuters - KANSAS CITY - Tue Nov 17, 2009
KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of...
KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of...
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