Crops – Page 4 – A Plant Out of Place

Draft Environmental Impact Statement for 2,4-D Resistant Corn and Soybean Released

January 3, 2014February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

USDA-APHIS has just released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for 2,4-D resistant corn and soybean. The 2,4-D resistant crops were developed by Dow AgroSciences using genetic engineering. The corn and soybeans will be marketed to growers as the “Enlist” weed control system. Crops with the Enlist trait will not only be 2,4-D resistant, but will also have stacked traits that make the crops resistant to glyphosate and glufosinate. The ability to use three very effective herbicide modes of action will …

Large-scale impacts of herbicide-resistant weeds

December 2, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

As I was updating information on herbicide resistant weeds for class this week, I wanted to find some hard numbers on the large-scale impact herbicide-resistance can have. Obviously, my first thought was to find information on cotton production in the South. Glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth has been something of a poster child for the potentially devastating impacts of herbicide resistant weeds in the last few years. It has been dubbed a “superweed” by many, including Nature News, the New York Times, …

Do cultural and mechanical weed control practices delay development of herbicide resistant weeds?

November 15, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

Researchers from Wyoming, Nebraska, and Montana will use kochia in a five-year study to help find a solution to weed-resistance to herbicides. Department of Plant Sciences associate professor Andrew Kniss has received a National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant to analyze methods of weed control other than herbicide. “Diverse crop rotations and tillage are commonly recommended for management of herbicide-resistant weeds, but there is still not that much field-based information on how successful these approaches will be,” explained Kniss. “Since …

Managing herbicide-resistant weeds

November 10, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

I made this word cloud in preparation for the class I’m teaching tomorrow. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I decided to post it here and share. In class, we’re going to discuss the effectiveness of various practices to manage herbicide resistant weeds. In preparation for tomorrow’s discussion, I asked my students to review 5 different herbicide industry websites to see what they were recommending to manage herbicide resistant weeds. This word cloud was created by taking recommendations from …

Could a herbicide-resistance gene provide fitness benefits in the absence of the herbicide?

August 22, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

A really interesting study was reported by Nature News, and has been picking up steam around the interwebs (including Wired and Scientific American). The headlines read “Genetically modified crops pass benefits to weeds” and “weeds get unintended ‘fitness’ boost from genetic modification.” The stories are reporting on a study in New Phytologist titled “A novel EPSP synthase transgene for glyphosate resistance stimulates growth and fecundity in weedy rice (Oryza sativa) without herbicide.” Sorry, not open access. I’ve read the paper a …

The problem with monoculture

August 17, 2013February 25, 2020 - by Andrew Kniss

I’ve been meaning to write a post on monoculture for quite some time. In fact, I began writing this post over 8 months ago, but for various reasons this topic never made the top of my priority list. This tweet by Michael Pollan finally prompted me to revisit this topic: Grist take on the Harmon OJ piece, reminding us that the real problem to which GM is “the solution”is monoculture. http://t.co/lQDg48SdgI — Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) July 29, 2013 Pollan was …

Carl Zimmer brings a refreshing bit of perspective to the discussion of herbicide resistant weeds

July 15, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

Weeds have been in the media quite a lot lately. Usually related to some sensational story about “superweeds” and how they’re “winning.” So it was extremely refreshing to read the measured take by Carl Zimmer in the New York Times Environment section, titled “Looking for Ways to Beat the Weeds.” Zimmer doesn’t resort to over-the-top statements and headlines as link-bait, and instead presents an interesting and accurate assessment of many of the problems with weeds. Perhaps most refreshing? He doesn’t …

The evidence of GMO harm in pig study is pretty flimsy

June 11, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

The latest really scary paper regarding GMOs has been circulated widely on Twitter today, primarily by the usual suspects (Bittman, Pollan, and many others). The paper (available here, on the blog of the primary author Judy Carman) is titled “A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed a combined genetically modified (GM) soy and GM maize diet.” The study has already been criticized for various reasons by David Tribe and Mark Lynas. The authors of the study fed pigs for nearly 2 years 22.7 weeks with either …

Laurie Garrett gets things surprisingly wrong on the Colbert Report

June 6, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

Strange times indeed. I woke up this morning to find several folks in my twitter stream alerting me to an interview on the “Colbert Report.” The interview was supposed to be about the GM wheat found recently in Oregon. Near the beginning of the interview, Colbert asks (humorously) how the GM wheat survived, wondering if it had been “doing a Rambo out there, living on mud puddles and grubs?” Laurie Garrett immediately goes completely off-topic and responds: Garrett: “The one thing …

Glyphosate resistant wheat found in Oregon

May 29, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

USDA-APHIS announced recently that volunteer wheat growing in an Oregon field has been confirmed to be resistant to glyphosate. Reports indicate the glyphosate resistance is due to the same transgenic event that was used in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready wheat. More information from the National Association of Wheat Growers and Agri-Pulse. The good news is that this wheat event has already been reviewed by the FDA (back in 2004) and found to be as safe as conventional wheat for food and …