Winning: So obviously this means we should grow everything organic and non-gm and hope that the pests and fungus don't wipe out the entire crop.


/ I'm incredibly liberal but I farking hate hippies.

or we could employ time proven agriculture techniques: rotate crops, grow naturally resistant varieties, try not to turn an entire state into a corn patch.

/you also sound concerned

Link (new window)


Is this what we really want people?
/ IS IT?

meat0918:
Also, the farmers were supposed to rotate their crops.

Crimently guys, I knew by age six the rotation was corn, navy beans, soy beans, corn, navy beans, soy beans, etc.

And if you grew beets it was sugar beets, beans, beans, beans, sugar beets.

$$$ >>> Best Practices

/Doomed

Well Duh. NO rotation due to high corn prices. Around here it is corn after corn after corn instead of corn/soybeans/corn//soybeans. If you can get an acre into corn you do. As yields go down, prices keep going up and the incentive to plant more corn yet again even at lower yield is still there. In addition, resistance was already seen in cases of other GM crops such as the Roundup (tm) resistance gene, so what did they think would happen here. Farmers aren't always perfect about spraying and a few plants always escape near the edges an a few bugs always almost die but don't. When Roundup no longer works it is going to be a biatch because a lot of guys have sold their tillage equipment and are all no till now dependent on the Roundup field corn.

I seem to remember something in History class about not rotating crops, dust bowl, great depression... I'm glad we don't have that to worry about.

KarmicDisaster: Around here it is corn after corn after corn instead of corn/soybeans/corn//soybeans.

I was just in Michigan Seed Corn Country for the holidays and and that seems to be the attitude, seed corn is so profitable that farm land prices are off the charts in that area.

Yeah, proper crop-management techniques are all well and good, but when the farmers can't afford to do it, either they resort to the current clusert-fark, or there's a famine as the economy collapses and food-prices explode.

Not to say it isn't possible, but it's just unrealistic to think people will go back to paying for expensive food when there's so much incentive for cheap food now and fark everyone else.

The tragedy of the commons indeed.

Nurglitch: Yeah, proper crop-management techniques are all well and good, but when the farmers can't afford to do it, either they resort to the current clusert-fark, or there's a famine as the economy collapses and food-prices explode.

Not to say it isn't possible, but it's just unrealistic to think people will go back to paying for expensive food when there's so much incentive for cheap food now and fark everyone else.

The tragedy of the commons indeed.

Take a look at what happened in the 1970's. Hybrid corn was new and everyone planted it because it yielded so much better; you'd be crazy not to. Most of the hybrids were from the same stocks, and turned out to be susceptible to "southern corn leaf blight" which attacked what was called "race T cytoplasm" (now known to be a mitochondrial gene). About 80% of the corn crop died.

Whoa whoa whoa, that sounds an awful lot like the bugs have evolved to resist the GM corn. I was told by an authoritative source on THIS VERY SITE that evolution is the tinfoil that keeps god out of athiests brainwaves, so this is obviously bullshiat.

So, how's the Doritos crop in your mom's basement doing?

Monsanto Vs Giant Insects!

Wow, I predicted this would occur by 2010. I was only off by 1 year. Cool.

meat0918: meat0918: Hence the reason a person planting such corn was to also plant non modified corn, to slow the development of resistance by making those dining on non-modified corn out compete those that didn't.

Cunning plan was cunning, but doomed to failure if you're relying on a farmer to sacrifice a part of his crop.

Let's stop with adding insecticides, and get around to adding nutritional value, or better yet, taking all the traits we love about something like a tomato, and see if we can't get a tomato that ships well, tastes great, and is resistant to fusillarium wilt.

FTFM.

Also, the farmers were supposed to rotate their crops.

Crimently guys, I knew by age six the rotation was corn, navy beans, soy beans, corn, navy beans, soy beans, etc.

And if you grew beets it was sugar beets, beans, beans, beans, sugar beets.

Well when the gov't keeps making it uber profitable to grow corn, people grow corn.

we don't want this, do we?

the windup girl (pop)

because that is what we are headed towards

/calorie wars

meat0918: KarmicDisaster: Nurglitch: Yeah, proper crop-management techniques are all well and good, but when the farmers can't afford to do it, either they resort to the current clusert-fark, or there's a famine as the economy collapses and food-prices explode.

Not to say it isn't possible, but it's just unrealistic to think people will go back to paying for expensive food when there's so much incentive for cheap food now and fark everyone else.

The tragedy of the commons indeed.

Take a look at what happened in the 1970's. Hybrid corn was new and everyone planted it because it yielded so much better; you'd be crazy not to. Most of the hybrids were from the same stocks, and turned out to be susceptible to "southern corn leaf blight" which attacked what was called "race T cytoplasm" (now known to be a mitochondrial gene). About 80% of the corn crop died.

Hybrid corn has been around a while, it just wasn't until around the early 1900's (new window) it was economically feasible to produce the seed. The 70's crop failures were a new variety of hybrid corn

And I know I am being a bit of a pedant here and am not directing this at you, but can we all be sure to make a clear distinction between hybrid plants and those plants altered by direct genetic manipulation, commonly known as GMO?

I'm fascinated with food production techniques and history, and how we can improve by blending old school methods with new technologies

//Here's another article on corn hybridization Link (new window)

Well, you miss read my post if you think that I was somehow coming out against hybrid plants as "bad" or soemthing, I was just trying to make the point that when everyone plants the same thing and relies on it, whatever that is; a GM crop, or just the same strain, there can and has been trouble. Look at the modern banana for example; all the same variety and all only propagated by grafting and now it is all susceptible to a fungus and the original plant can't even be propagated by seed and the original parents are gone.

miss jinxed: we don't want this, do we?

the windup girl (pop)

because that is what we are headed towards

/calorie wars

I read that book and then looked over at my peppers and was very glad that I knew exactly where the seed had come from, and its genetic history (no genetic modification past the standard cross breeding for traits on a few).

ZAZ: Nurglitch

I don't consider this a tragedy of the commons. The tragedy of the commons is the argument that public resources are not divided well by people acting in their isolated self interest. Corn farming is also about individual tradeoffs of short term vs. long term gain. Poor crop rotation can be harmful to the farmer in the long term even when nobody else is affected.

This is a tragedy of the commons because the commons in this case is the market, wherein each farmer is acting in their own interest. The rational ones have no incentive to act against their own interest (reducing yield) when doing so will put them at a disadvantage against other rational farmers and idiots who are acting against their own long-term interest. The point being that if farmers were willing to take a smaller cut now to preserve their long-trem interests, there would be idiots and opportunists taking advantage of the situation, and part of the issue of farming is that it has thin margins that need managing on a year to year basis.

The standard financial deal is that I lend you x money now in return for y money later when y > x because x is worth more right now than it will be after the currency has inflated. Going back to good crop rotation is irrational since it means decreasing x and increasing the risk of y, especially if doing so means that you won't be farming next year.

If you think about it according to the evolutionary interpretation of game theory, you'll notice that selection pressure is going to favour the farms that survive the short term, not the farms that will support the long term good of everyone.

From TFA:
Seed maker Monsanto Co. created the Bt strain by splicing a gene from a common soil organism called Bacillus thuringiensis into the plant. The natural insecticide it makes is considered harmless to people and livestock.
This bothers me too. Where is the study that shows that the natural insecticide is harmless to people and livestock?

The more I hear about GMOs the happer I am that I take Asacol^TM while it doesn't let me digest the stuff it does let me pass it with less cramping. Talk to your doctor today about Asacol^TM for less cramping.

/smile
//fade

Nurglitch: ZAZ: Nurglitch

I don't consider this a tragedy of the commons. The tragedy of the commons is the argument that public resources are not divided well by people acting in their isolated self interest. Corn farming is also about individual tradeoffs of short term vs. long term gain. Poor crop rotation can be harmful to the farmer in the long term even when nobody else is affected.

This is a tragedy of the commons because the commons in this case is the market, wherein each farmer is acting in their own interest. The rational ones have no incentive to act against their own interest (reducing yield) when doing so will put them at a disadvantage against other rational farmers and idiots who are acting against their own long-term interest. The point being that if farmers were willing to take a smaller cut now to preserve their long-trem interests, there would be idiots and opportunists taking advantage of the situation, and part of the issue of farming is that it has thin margins that need managing on a year to year basis.

The standard financial deal is that I lend you x money now in return for y money later when y > x because x is worth more right now than it will be after the currency has inflated. Going back to good crop rotation is irrational since it means decreasing x and increasing the risk of y, especially if doing so means that you won't be farming next year.

If you think about it according to the evolutionary interpretation of game theory, you'll notice that selection pressure is going to favour the farms that survive the short term, not the farms that will support the long term good of everyone.

Yes, this is the same logic people apply when deciding not to get vaccinated. Part of the problem is that ethanol production has inflated demand.

One solution might be for large consumers of corn, like giant agro-corporations, to require some sort of certification of crop rotation, in recognition of the long term risk of massive increases in corn prices. As a last resort, govt could enforce it.

meat0918: I knew by age six the rotation was corn, navy beans, soy beans, corn, navy beans, soy beans, etc.

And if you grew beets it was sugar beets, beans, beans, beans, sugar beets.

I though it was hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders, navy beans, navy beans, navy beans, hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders, navy beans, navy beans, meatloaf sandwich, sloppy joe?

meat0918: KarmicDisaster: Well, you miss read my post if you think that I was somehow coming out against hybrid plants as "bad" or soemthing, I was just trying to make the point that when everyone plants the same thing and relies on it, whatever that is; a GM crop, or just the same strain, there can and has been trouble. Look at the modern banana for example; all the same variety and all only propagated by grafting and now it is all susceptible to a fungus and the original plant can't even be propagated by seed and the original parents are gone.

Yes, I did, my bad.

I completely agree that the extensive monoculture we have is a major problem.

I was rather disturbed to learn that nearly every tree and shrub at a nursery was produced via cloning from a parent plant, from fruit trees to ornamentals. For commercial orchards, this just seems to be asking for trouble in the form of a rust or rot.

Trees can't rust, silly, except for those aluminum Christmas trees

Dalek Caan's doomed mistress: miss jinxed: we don't want this, do we?

the windup girl (pop)

because that is what we are headed towards

/calorie wars

I read that book and then looked over at my peppers and was very glad that I knew exactly where the seed had come from, and its genetic history (no genetic modification past the standard cross breeding for traits on a few).

i'm so glad. sometimes i think about that book when i'm eating and i get really sad. and unfortunately living in nyc does not make it easy to grow my own non-genetically modified food.

/farmers market is expensive
//and i'm poor

Fano: Trees can't rust, silly, except for those aluminum Christmas trees

Comandra Blister Rust is a disease of hard pines that is caused by a fungus growing in the inner bark.

/i r silly 2

I have to change shampoo formulas every so often or my hair grease adapts. This is the same thing really.

So? Not unexpected at all, and not some sort of insurmountable wall. Change the chemistry, modify it again, done. Same process we use with bacteriocides, but the cycles are slower. We can keep this up for quite some time, by which I mean probably several hundred years if not thousands, before we'll need an actual new technique.

Nothing is ever fixed forever, man. Welcome to earth.

Animatronik: Yes, this is the same logic people apply when deciding not to get vaccinated. Part of the problem is that ethanol production has inflated demand.

One solution might be for large consumers of corn, like giant agro-corporations, to require some sort of certification of crop rotation, in recognition of the long term risk of massive increases in corn prices. As a last resort, govt could enforce it.

Or you could simply stop forcing corn into gasoline and stop subsidizing the growing of corn.

Oh man, don't get started on Ethanol, it is energy intensive; more energy goes into the process than you get out. Growing a crop that competes with a major food crop at an energy loss and using taxpayer money to do it has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. It is stupider than stupid.

Dalek Caan's doomed mistress: miss jinxed: we don't want this, do we?

the windup girl (pop)

because that is what we are headed towards

/calorie wars

I read that book and then looked over at my peppers and was very glad that I knew exactly where the seed had come from, and its genetic history (no genetic modification past the standard cross breeding for traits on a few).

You say that like it's a bad thing if they were modified.

Let me tell you a story.

I worked on breeding for a South American country that shall remain nameless at my university. We were working on elevation tolerance level genes to make a certain plant easier to grow at lower and higher elevations than it normally grew at (two sets). My Professor had showed them our results previously, and said that we could get them plant seed that could be crossed with native populations. But there was a catch. We had used Agrobacterium to fix in some of the genes. No 'Natual' breeding methods. This was five years ago he had found this. They refused to take the stock unless it was naturally bred. We know what set of genes we want. But it's taken five years and will probably take more to get the natural product because of twatwaffles like you assuming that everyone is Monsanto. People are eating less, because of their government being twits.

Let's all get this out here right now. These failures are threefold and none of them rest on GMO exclusively, or even mostly.

First: Corn. Fark Corn. Fark Corn straight to hell. Corn gets so much grant money for study while things like Solanacae, the Cucumis family, and Legumes sit relatively unstudied. Diversity is sacrificed because politicians are twits and need to win Iowa and other corn states.

Second: Best Practices are not followed.

Third: Further changes can fix this problem. Though honestly I'd like to see the corn take a blow so the rest of plant breeding can get a turn at being a star. Though this won't happen.

If they want to subsidies corn maybe they should do it on the condition that the crops be rotated and be only x% of your total planting.

Grew up on a tobacco farm. 1 year: Corn and tobacco. Next year: Soybeans and tobacco in a different area. Rinse and repeat.

Also, that GMO seed was derived from viruses, and it a patented life form.....

/scumbag monsanto