cotton – A Plant Out of Place

The “failure” of biotechnology to increase crop yield

February 26, 2014February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

For some reason, over the last few days I’ve heard a lot of people criticizing GMOs for not increasing crop yields. This criticism certainly isn’t new. I don’t really understand the reason for the sudden resurgence of this claim, but it does provide an excuse to address the topic with some actual data. GMOs can claim some successes, but a widespread quantum leap in the yield of important food crops is not one of them. – Jonathan Foley If you take a …

Crops / GMO / Herbicide Resistance / Imported from Control Freaks

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, …