GM Farmland pollen puts monarchs in peril

[blazing star]

http://dhushara.freehosting.net/book/upd/aug201/gm2.htm

Monarchs die when they ingest pollen from GM crops.

[Paul Cherubini]

http://www.pnas.org/content/98/21/11937.abstract
"This 2-year study suggests that the impact of Bt corn pollen
from current commercial hybrids on monarch butterfly populations
is negligible."

[blazing star]

Thank you for confirming that BT pollen kills monarch larvae.

[Paul Cherubini]

The GMO monocultures of central Minnesota currently have evening roosts containing 300 monarchs http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1313470851
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/padua.jpg

So that likely means I'll likely see high 100's to low 1000's there in about a week from now just like I did last year in late August. http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1284750130
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1284750303

Ironically, the largest August roosts in the country occur in these GMO farmland monocultures of the upper Midwest.

[Mona Miller]

Actually they occur in trees. Monarchs don't roost in field of GMO crops. They don't even nectar in those crops.

[Paul Cherubini]

Actually they occur in trees. Monarchs don't roost in field of GMO crops. They don't even nectar in those crops.

Right. The clusters form in trees that are surrounded by huge fields of GMO crops like this clump of trees:

[Mona Miller]

What does butterflies clustering near GMO crops have any thing to do with GMO crops? It doesn't!

They are clustering in trees.

[blazing star]

Yeah, and the photo posted is more evidence that the arbitrary of herbiciding have resulted in a crop margin void of any biodiversity and any milkweed. Thanks, again, for more evidence of the vast destruction that GM crops induce, Paul.

[Paul Cherubini]

Yeah, and the photo posted is more evidence that the arbitrary of herbiciding have resulted in a crop margin void of any biodiversity and any milkweed. Thanks, again, for more evidence of the vast destruction that GM crops induce, Paul.

That crop margin in the photo was mowed, not sprayed with herbicide. After mowing the farmers bale up the grass and use it or sell it for use as farm animal feed. Mowed crop margins contain small milkweed plants that female monarchs savor for egg laying as my recent video demonstrates:
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312947297

The females monarchs tend to avoid laying eggs on the larger milkweed plants found on unmowed crop margins and roadsides because they seem to "know" such plants
are laden with ants, earwigs and other predators that eat monarch eggs and small caterpillars.

Mowed crop margins also contain monarch nectar plants like red clover:
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312766867
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312920555

[Mona Miller]

Why should we believe you? You lie to us, you mislead us, you misinform us.

[blazing star]

So now your logic will justify no milkweed colony because it's mowed? Mowed or hebicided; what's the difference Paul. The end result: no milkweed. Just more evidence that gm farms destroy habitat. Thanks for posting and for continuing to educate us on the perils of gm crops.

[Paul Cherubini]

So now your logic will justify no milkweed colony because it's mowed? Mowed or hebicided; what's the difference Paul. The end result: no milkweed.

The crop margins are mowed only once or twice a year and that gives the milkweed enough time to regrow and enough time for monarchs to complete a life cycle. As I've said before, newly emerged monarchs can commonly be found in the crop margins in late summer. Like this:
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/260thb.jpg
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/cty8b.jpg
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/260thd.jpg

These mowed crop margins are also have an abundance of leopard frogs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1JHJKMEsVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr8k2U5saDI
So while the general public gets inundated with frightening stories like "Monsanto's Roundup Killing Frogs Worldwide" http://www.rense.com/general67/mons.htm the GMO farmers in the Midwest USA know that frogs are actually spectacularly abundant along the margins of their Roundup treated corn and soybean crops.

[blazing star]

Fail. It is a documented fact that round up harms amphibians. Rodeo has to be used and Rodeo is much more expensive than round up and farmers are not concerned about paying more money to save some frogs.

[Paul Cherubini]

Fail. It is a documented fact that round up harms amphibians. Rodeo has to be used and Rodeo is much more expensive than round up and farmers are not concerned about paying more money to save some frogs.

Rodeo herbicide has the same active ingredient (glyphosate) as Roundup http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld4TN001.pdf, but Rodeo is not registered for use on crops so midwestern corn and soybean farmers don't use it.

[blazing star]

I know all of that. Thank you for confirming that, once again, GM crops put biodiversity in danger.

Round up's carrying agent is toxic to amphibians. I can't believe you don't know this but then I forgot, you're an entomologist not a herpetologist so you only specialize in killing insects.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200507 ... _sys.shtml

[Paul Cherubini]

Round up's carrying agent is toxic to amphibians.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200507 ... _sys.shtml

That was an forced exposure, artificial pond study involving captively held tadpoles and frogs. The study didn't show Roundup is toxic to amphibians in real world field situations. In plain english, farmers do not see dead frog after they broadcast spray their corn and soybean fields with Roundup like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqglw6EmFI Instead, they see population booms of frogs like this despite the spraying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1JHJKMEsVs

[Mona Miller]

I wish we had an emoticon for BS.

[blazing star]

You really don't know about round up, do you? Research before you post. That way, you can try to ensure that you don't spread misinformation (if you care about that kind of thing). It seems you need to brush up on killing things besides insects. Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate

Excerpt:

Glyphosate is one of the pesticides that pose the greatest danger to amphibians.[70] Fish and aquatic invertebrates are more sensitive to Roundup than terrestrial organisms.[47] Glyphosate is generally less persistent in water than in soil, with 12 to 60 day persistence observed in Canadian pond water, yet persistence of over a year have been observed in the sediments of ponds in Michigan and Oregon.[39]
The EU classifies Roundup as R51/53 Toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment.[71]

Roundup is not registered for aquatic uses,[72] and studies of its effects on amphibians indicate it is toxic to them.[73] Other glyphosate formulations registered for aquatic use have been found to have negligible adverse effects on sensitive amphibians.[74]

[Paul Cherubini]

You really don't know about round up, do you? Research before you post. That way, you can try to ensure that you don't spread misinformation

The Wikipedia article said: "Roundup is not registered for aquatic uses,[72] and studies of its effects on amphibians indicate it is toxic to them.[73]"

But reference "[73]" is the 2005 Rick Relyea paper and Monsanto has explained in great detail why the 2005 Relyea paper is not credible: http://www.monsanto.com/products/Docume ... ib_05a.pdf

Specifically, Monsanto said:

a) "The study does not test a natural wetland system and also does not represent realistic use conditions for Roundup herbicides."

b) "The application rate was more than 7 times typical use rates."

c) "The results of of the Relyea paper are inconsistent with actual field studies conducted at realistic application rates." In a study in a natural wetland (Thompson et al 2004) no treatment related effect on mortality of the leopard frog or green frog was observed..."

d) A risk assessment considering toxicity data for amphibians and other aquatic organisms and relevant exposure concentrations concluded that terrestrial use of glyphosate formulations is predicted to pose minimal acute and chronic risk to amphibians including tadpoles (Geisy et al 2000).

[blazing star]

OK, now you want us to believe that Monsanto is saying their products are safe rather than rely on independent study? Fail. From the same link I posted earlier.

On two occasions, the United States EPA has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate.[91][92][93] In the first incident, involving Industrial Biotest Laboratories (IBT), an EPA reviewer stated, after finding "routine falsification of data", it was "hard to believe the scientific integrity of the studies when they said they took specimens of the uterus from male rabbits".[94][95][96] In the second incident of falsifying test results in 1991, the owner of the lab (Craven Labs), and three employees were indicted on 20 felony counts, the owner was sentenced to five years in prison and fined US$50,000, the lab was fined $15.5 million and ordered to pay $3.7 million in restitution.[97][98] Craven laboratories performed studies for 262 pesticide companies, including Monsanto.

Monsanto has stated the studies have been repeated, and Roundup's EPA certification does not now use any studies from Craven Labs or IBT. Monsanto alleges the Craven Labs investigation was started by the EPA after a pesticide industry task force discovered irregularities.[99]

[blazing star]

Hey Paul,

You quote the EPA in your posts. Or do you only do this if the evidence benefits your "spin".

EPA determines that round up is toxic to amphibians.

http://www.epa.gov/espp/litstatus/effec ... nation.pdf

[Paul Cherubini]

EPA determines that round up is toxic to amphibians.
http://www.epa.gov/espp/litstatus/effec ... nation.pdf

EPA has never claimed frogs are not abundant on Roundup treated farmlands. It's an indisputable fact that frogs are abundant on the glyphosate (e.g. Roundup) treated GMO corn and soybean farmlands of the upper midwest such as on this GMO farmland at Morris, Minnesota:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1JHJKMEsVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr8k2U5saDI
And abundant despite the indisputable fact that these GMO farmlands represent the region of the country
where glyphosate (e.g. Roundup) is used most intensively:

[Mona Miller]

OMG, you really must think we have short memories. I remember all the information that you didn't include, taking parts of sentences out of research papers, leaving out very important information, or presenting only the data, which showed your point.

Stop this insanity. We are never going to be convinced that Roundup is safe because it is not safe. We have read the data and know the results. Stop posting misinformation from Monsanto.