Re: Re: Article FYI

[Guest guest]

Make sure you get there as soon as flowers are out and tickle their little

fancies with a brush using your own plants near by.  I did read that cross

fertilizing from another plant of the same thing will make for bigger crops and

stronger ones than self fertilizing one plant only.  Many will reproduce with

just the one plant but do better with 2 or more.  Beat those busy little bees

out there. 

Carolyn Wilkerson

 

To: sproutpeople

Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 1:58 PM

Subject: Re: Article FYI

 

What is so frustrating about this, is that I am OBSESSIVE about keeping my

garden organic, but if my neighbor chooses such seeds or growing methods, MY

efforts are futile! GRRRRRRR, don't get me started!

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> This is from Organic Gardening Magazine:

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> The New GMOs: More Chemicals, More Dangerous

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> An upcoming GMO could be adding millions of pounds of toxic pesticides to the

food chain and environment.

> By Leah Zerbe

> A global pesticide company announced in early 2012 that it plans to start

selling a new GMO http://www.rodale.com/new-gmo-threats , AKA genetically

engineered, product to farmers as early as the 2014 growing season, a move weed

scientists have been predicting for years since weeds have been growing

increasingly resistant to the chemical glyphosate, the active ingredient in

Roundup.

> Monsanto said its Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans are genetically engineered to

withstand sprayings of not just the Roundup weedkiller, but also dicamba, a

chemical weedkiller that disrupts a plants' hormonal system and causes them to

grow in abnormal ways that usually lead to death. (Dicamba is a developmental

toxin.)

> Ironically, the introduction of GMOs in the 1990s was supposed to lower

pesticide use in the United States, but it's done anything but that. In 2009

alone, farmers dumped more than 57 million pounds of glyphosate on food crops,

according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Just like overusing antibiotics

in farm animals causes antibiotics resistant, pesticide abuse causes weed

resistance, resulting in massive, hard-to-kill superweeds. Because of this,

non-organic farmers are forced to use more pesticides, sometimes even reverting

back to older, even more dangerous types.

> While Monsanto is stacking dicamba with Roundup, which, by the way, is already

detected inside of the non-organic food we eat†" it's legal, other companies

are rushing to bring new GMOs to the market. Dow Agrosciences is hoping to

introduce its 2,4-D†" tolerant corn and soy. (2,4-D has been classified as a

probable carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the

European Union classifies it as an endocrine disruptor.)

> Last year, veteran weed scientist Mortensen, PhD, weed ecologist at Penn

State University, crunched the numbers and found that commercial introduction of

crops genetically engineered to withstand dicamba and 2,4-D will likely lead to

a 60- to 100-percent increase in the amount of herbicides used, adding millions

of pounds of toxic pesticides into the food chain and environment.

> Organic sounds pretty tasty about now, doesn't it?

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