[Market-farming] Bt sweet corn

Road's End Farm organic87 at frontiernet.net
Mon Jan 25 11:47:50 EST 2010


On Jan 25, 2010, at 10:34 AM, prmsdlndfrm at aol.com wrote:

>
>
> Ive asked about bt sweet corn on other sites and was crucified, but  
> not many of them were realy growing for thier livlihood. But you all  
> seem to be more open minded. I love to grow sweet corn, its always a  
> good seller, but its a constant battle with ear worms. Todays  
> customer will not tolerate anything like that, If you cut the ends  
> off and that end browns they wont buy that either. What is you alls  
> opinion on bt corn.
>

If any of your neighbors are growing organic corn, please talk to them  
before planting. Depending on the distance and their certification  
agency, your growing GMO corn may make it impossible for them to grow  
organic corn.

The more BT corn is grown, the sooner the earworms are likely to  
become resistant to BT in general. I don't know whether this  
resistance is already occuring; you might look into that -- I would  
think that extension agents in your county should be able to tell you  
whether there's resistance in your area. Once the resistance develops,  
the BT corn won't work anyway. Resistance will develop faster if the  
BT is built into the corn than if you just apply it with, for  
instance, a Zea-later, because the BT is continuously present when  
it's built into the genetics.

I agree that, if you do decide to grow it, you should label it for  
your customers; and that labeling it as "unsprayed" (which I note you  
didn't say you were going to do) would be misleading: there's more  
pesticide present in genetically BT corn than there would be if you  
applied it with a sprayer, not less.

Have you tried a Zea-later, by the way?

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6457-zea-later-ii.aspx



-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale

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