pesticides – A Plant Out of Place

Could GMO corn be responsible for increasing childrens’ IQ?

November 9, 2016May 16, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

This is a follow-up to my last post on the recent New York Times article written by Danny Hakim. A small but very important section of the NYT article has been bothering me ever since I read it, but it took me a while to find the time to actually find the data to explain why it bothered me. In my last post, I mostly looked at herbicide use; I’m a weed scientist so I already had that data downloaded and analyzed. …

The tiresome discussion of initial GMO expectations

October 30, 2016May 16, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

A new article in the New York Times has questioned the benefits associated with genetically engineered crops (which I’ll call GMOs for brevity). The response to the article has been pretty predictable; folks who don’t like GMOs are circulating it to say “I told you so.” And ag-twitter has exploded with claims that the New York Times is biased against the technology. The article makes some reasonable points that GMO crops are not a ‘silver bullet’ cure all technology. But almost any …

What does a GMO label tell you about herbicide use?

March 24, 2016February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about various food companies deciding to label their products for GMO content in response to Vermont’s GMO labeling bill. I’m still mostly indifferent to GMO labels, and frankly, have grown tired of this particular debate. But there seems to be at least one misconception that I wanted to briefly address. If you follow the GMO issue at all, you’re probably aware that a large majority of GMO crops currently being grown are herbicide …