Re: [CH] Re: Monarch thread
Harry Jiles (harryo@davesworld.net)
Thu, 2 Mar 2000 12:43:58 -0600
I stated figures for 1998 which was admittedly at the beginning of Bt corn
production. I am not sure but I believe that 1999 estimates were about 14%
of the total corn crop planted to Bt corn. The best estimates that I can
find for 2000 crop intentions are about 20% of the total, not 30%, but my
personal involvement with the seed companies that I deal with causes me to
doubt the 20% intentions figure. Almost every corn grower that I know or
have had contact with are reducing their Bt acres because of the economics
and concerns about export markets. The seed companies that I deal with have
large inventories of Bt corn seed because sales were so slow.
I agree that field trials will yield vastly superior information than
laboratory tests but I will repeat what I know about the numbers of
milkweeds in corn fields from 27 years of personal field trials on weed
control. Milkweeds in cornfields are not common. Everyone seems to want to
ignore this. Also, from 27 years of growing commercial corn seed for 3
different seed companies, I can tell you that the most common setback for
fiels of corn grown for hybrid seed is 20 rods(330') from commercial corn
fields. This is to prevent contamination of seed fields from the pollen of
other corn fields. In extreme cases you will see a 40 rod(660') setback but
20 is the norm. This means corn pollen will not move more than 330' to 660'
at the most. Any milkweeds situated more than 660' from corn fields are
going to have virtually no corn pollen deposited on them and milkweeds 330"
or more from corn fields are highly unlikely to have any appreciable pollen
deposited on them. Most milkweeds are present on fallow ground that is
certainly more than 330' from corn fields. If anyone does not believe this,
then they should go out to a corn field during pollination and see how long
it takes them to find milkweeds in the field. If they do find any at all,
they should take note of the number found and compare it with those found in
fallow ground which is far removed from the corn fields.
Harry
-----Original Message-----
From: GarryMass@aol.com <GarryMass@aol.com>
To: chile-heads@globalgarden.com <chile-heads@globalgarden.com>
Date: Thursday, March 02, 2000 10:34 AM
Subject: [CH] Re: Monarch thread
>decidedly premature whether pro or co(r)n. I'm looking for field vs lab
>trials, better controls (milkweed collected from the field, rather than
hand
>contaminated), no more guestimates or eyeballing. Since corn pollination
>generally comes later in the season than Monarch larvae milkweed feeding,
>field trials would be much better empirical evidence. In the interim,
>despite claims to the contrary, about 30% of all corn is Bt manipulated so
if
>the news is bad, it will be big, bad news. My fear, like Byron's, has more