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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 05/13/2010 : 20:07:32
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Oopsy...
Pest munches up China fields after GM crop sprays halt
A once minor pest has ravaged fruit orchards and cotton fields in China after farmers stopped spraying insecticide in crops of a genetically-modified type of cotton resistant to bollworms, experts said.
A previously insignificant pest has been rampaging through China's fruit orchards and cotton fields since the country began cultivating a genetically modified cotton that is resistant to bollworms, experts said.
China started growing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in 1997 because it gave better yields and stood up to bollworms, but a key fallout has been a thriving population of mirid bugs, which were earlier just an insignificant pest.
"Entire swathes of agricultural land that never had any problem with this pest are facing a major problem," said Kongming Wu at the State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests in Beijing.
The bug had infested plantations of apples, strawberries, pears, peaches and vegetables, Wu told Reuters by telephone, adding that the problem emerged after regular insecticide spraying had been halted... |
What I hate about this story is that it fuels those who debate against GM crops. Greenpeace will be all over this...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2010 : 23:34:41 [Permalink]
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Fascinating. This little bugger has just had a wider niche handed to it on a silver platter, now that it doesn't need to compete with the boll weevil anymore. Then, it was probably always kept as a minor pest in the past by pesticides, which were stopped due to the resistance of the GM cotton to boll weevils.
Now we need GM modified cotton and fruit trees, designed to resist the mirid bug? Or maybe just some more pesticide spraying. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/15/2010 04:19:39 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2010 : 03:43:16 [Permalink]
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Once again my point is made for me: The only Law in the entire universe that actually means anything is Murphy's. This was entirely predictable.
My advice to the world is to consult Murph before taking any action on a large scale. It won't be followed, of course, and we'll continue to blunder along from this disaster to the next. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2010 : 09:29:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
It won't be followed, of course, and we'll continue to blunder along from this disaster to the next.
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Yes......yes we will. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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The Law of Unintended Consequences?
