Thursday, May 30, 2013

I Am Getting Tired Of These Posts

I am getting tired of these posts about glyhposate.  Either you like and use it or you don't.  I am tired of glyphosate in the news every day but after the nation using it for 40 years I guess it's to be expected.

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced today that test results of plant samples from an Oregon farm indicate the presence of genetically engineered (GE) glyphosate-resistant wheat plants. Further testing by USDA laboratories indicates the presence of the same GE glyphosate-resistant wheat variety that Monsanto was authorized to field test in 16 states from 1998 to 2005.


APHIS launched a formal investigation after being notified by an Oregon State University scientist that initial tests of wheat samples from an Oregon farm indicated the possible presence of GE glyphosate-resistant wheat plants. There are no GE wheat varieties approved for sale or in commercial production in the United States or elsewhere at this time."

The seed supply seems affected from wheat to corn to soybeans.  You can find some non GMO in every GMO seed lot and you can find some GMO in every non GMO seed lot.

So what, isn't this OK?  I don't think so. I think we should have preserved our pure breeding lines and I am not sure we have done that.  I think we are going to need them in the near future, do you>

What do you think?  I am open to new topics, this one is getting old.

Thanks,

Ed Winkle




5 comments:

  1. Im upset by this. The American export market may be affected which effects the American farmer. I hope the test for the roundup gene was a false positive but I fear the that Monsanto droped the ball here. I defend gmo safety not irresponsible business.

    David Seck

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  2. We must sound like a bunch of eugenist nazis, my main beef with GMOs has also always been the purity of the genetic pool and the biodiversity. It's already bad enough to maintain cultivars' purity with normal cross pollination.

    We rushed into GMOs without any safeguards or debate, under the pressure of mostly Monsanto. It shouldn't have been too difficult for the inventors of the infamous Terminator gene to find a way so that a GMO cannot cross-pollinate with another plant that does not have the same genetic marker or something.

    I still think that, properly done, GE has a great potential and beats conventional selection in every possible way. Growing a F1 hybrid into a stable cultivar takes generations, while it takes just months with GE, and then you just need to grow and reproduce it like the Bible says without worrying about selection anymore.

    The only thing maybe would be to restrict gene patenting to the genes that can't be obtained by conventional hybridization even if you use GE to create such an organism. For instance, if you add that drought resistance gene from one cultivar to another cultivar of the same species, regardless if you do it by conventional selection or GE, farmers should be able to legally plant the seeds they harvested. If the glyphosate resistance gene from a petunia is introduced in corn, then a time limited patent is possible because it's not something that would have happened in nature.

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  3. How about the posts how I wanna collect pp and put tile in because its more profitable then beans.

    Farmers farm, preacher preach.

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  4. Shut down our wheat export market tody. One of my neighbours wanted to sell 100 ton today, but no one is buying until this is worked out.

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  5. I have no problem with GM crops but unfortunately the customer is always right. And our European flax market pretty much shut down a few years ago when some traces of GM flax were detected in "normal flax". I'd never even heard of it before but just google "Triffid flax" to see what its all about. Now every year I have to pay for a GM test on my flax to ensure it is "triffid free". Prices and markets have recovered but seed growers are in the process of phasing out all the old flax varieties and introducing a new gmo free flax next year.

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