Many corn farmers go back to using chemicals as Mother Nature outwits genetically modified seeds.
As more farmers switched to the modified seed, the share of corn acreage treated with insecticide fell to 9% in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, from 25% in 2005, according to USDA data. Those farmers who continued to use insecticide applied less in 2010, the data showed.
In 2011, however, entomologists at Iowa State University and the University of Illinois started to document rootworms that were immune to the Monsanto gene, and have found these resistant pests scattered across the Midwest. Now, many farmers have decided they need to spray their soil to kill any rootworms that have developed Bt resistance, as well as growing populations of other pests.
Scott Greenlee, who farms 1,700 acres in Sac City, Iowa, said he planned to start using a soil insecticide this year after part of his crop succumbed to rootworms in 2012. The 53-year-old Mr. Greenlee, who had planted Monsanto’s Bt corn, said the affected fields produced just 50 or 60 bushels per acre, about a third of his normal yield. “It was a train wreck,” he added.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal ($ubscription required).
I am just curious if burning the soil is not practiced in the US. I have noticed, in many parts of India, they set the soil on fire (don’t know how, definitely not by using gasoline) and let it simmer for days. Thereafter, they plant a new crop…
I guess, that is better option than pesticides to kill the worms
Elyse,
Do they teach courses about the use of logic on the planet you come from?
Rich Kozlovich
Well, we all hope those 3 degrees are imaginary. Because we’ve had the 10 hottest years in a row doesn’t mean it’s getting hotter. And who cares about pollution making our kids sick with asthma, if we can make money out of GMOs and drilling, why bother with nature and people…
Yep. Mother Nature has Genetically Modified rootworms. Is NRDC okay with poisoning GM rootworms?
A classic example of measure, countermeasure, counter-countermeasure, … Natural selection and adaptation are quite remarkable. Now, a three degree increase in global temperature is an entirely different matter. Surely all life on Earth would succumb to that stressor.