Anti-GMO's for Profit

[thesummerqueen]

Er, no, if you spent another second googling, you'd know that botany deals more with the science of plants specifically, while horticulture is more about the practical interaction of plants and humans. More later, I just woke up.

[The Grand Nudger]

To be fair, roundup ready corn can't actually survive in puddles of roundup any better than any other crop or weed (and it really wouldn't have to be a puddle of round-up, could be a puddle of just about anything). The active ingredient in roundup is glyphosate, which is an enzyme inhibitor that does it's business on EPSPS(link below). Crops which have been engineered to be tolerant of this molecule (glyphosate) have had a copy of the EPSPS of bacterium (which functions "normally" in the presence of glyphosate compared the the crops own which doesn't function in the presence of this molecule) inserted, but here's the kicker...we could now engineer the corns own EPSPS to make it more tolerant. Nothing new is being produced, no new proteins or chemicals are being expressed, the same proteins and chemicals are being expressed through a slightly different process. Now, glyphosate is considered inert in human beings, and we do not have an EPSPS (we source this from the food we eat rather than producing it ourselves, gg heterotrophism). So, now that we've gotten specific...what part of this concerns you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSP_synthase

[thesummerqueen]

A budding horticulturalist? is that a fancy way of saying you grow marijuana?

Pet peeve - the second I say I'm studying horticulture, everyone thinks about pot. Eat me - because its horticulturalists and agriculturalists who study how to feed the rest of your asses, and provide you with pretty flowers to plant in your yards and hand your girlfriend whenever you fuck up. Vegetation is the backbone of the food chain. There are incredibly talented people in the marijuana industry, and equally incredibly talented people trying to figure out urban farming, organics and agriculture. Pot's important, but so's the food you're going to want when you develop the munchies. I also live next to a cop - that would be infernally stupid. I also have asthma - I can't smoke anything. And if I grew marijuana, I'd grow it well enough that I'd be out spending the money doing better shit than posting on this forum.

anyways, I looked up the arsenic in rice thing, and it doesn't seem as dangerous, as pesticide resistant GMO's from monsanto. I haven't heard about it before but the first thing I found, actually says your city's water supply might have more arsenic than this rice

My point with the rice is that arsenic is a much longer lasting "poison" than others that have been used as a pesticide. Hence the preceding "break down" comment. Seems to me the studies are as "inconclusive" as those on GMO's, yet no one's screaming about arsenic in rice like they are about Monsanto. Could it be because the arsenic was laid down in a prior generation and not now by a shadowy corporation?

Monsanto however has seen alot of criticism

Deservedly so in some cases. You asked my opinion of them, I gave it. I don't like the practices of many corporations, but that doesn't mean I'm against GMO's. As for the HuffPost article, I'll have to click through each study to see how they were performed - if they're as fucked as the one that started this thread, then they're based on as equally bad science as they're claiming the opposing studies are.

Here's a piece from Cornell on the ingredient glyphosate.
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/ext...e-ext.html

What you'd probably want to be more worried about is the agent polyethoxylated tallow amine. Here is an article that starts out by saying that it harms reproductive cells.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...erbicide-p

And it contains this paragraph:

In addition, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recognize POEA as an inert ingredient. Derived from animal fat, POEA is allowed in products certified organic by the USDA. The EPA has concluded that it is not dangerous to public health or the environment.

My opinion?

Based on the practices I know of landscapers - just on that scale, not even on mass-produced agriculture - it's the cost-saving, untrained shit-heads who spray things willy-nilly who cause more of a problem than the actual pesticides. Chemicals of which are used in both organics and standard farms, both people with knuckleheads they pull off the street and don't bother training or certifying in the use of whatever they're blowing everywhere. This isn't a "Monsanto" problem - it's a world-problem. It's an economic one too. Food practices have to be changed all around to better impact the environment and our health, but producers and landscapers alike don't like to spend the money or time.

Am I just missing it, or is there a linked study done of people who consistently ate Round-up products and increased birth defects because of it (I see where they mentioned it), or was it all done in a petri dish and animals? Because oil of oregano will kill bacteria in a petri dish, but won't do shit-all if used as a disinfectant in your kitchen. The toxicologist from Monsanto does have a point there about lab vs reality. On the other hand, if POEA works as the article says it does, "POEA lowers water's surface tension--the property that makes water form droplets on most surfaces--which helps glyphosate disperse and penetrate the waxy surface of a plant" then find another chemical that does the same thing.

I'm laughing a bit, however, because if POEA is used in organic farming then I know some vegans who are fucked - you're still using animal by-products to get your over-priced food. But that's besides the point.

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So, now that we've gotten specific...what part of this concerns you?

That's what I was wondering.

[The Grand Nudger]

There is an absolute shitload of bad practice in the world, willy nilly spraying, that's a problem no matter what you happen to be spraying. That's why it's important to have an EPA certified trainer (like myself) impress upon anyone who plans on spraying anything the importance of proper application and record keeping. Failure to properly apply pesticides or herbicides -regardless of their marketing status (organic/conventional)-,and failure to record what you have done in accordance with EPA standards is costly, dangerous to crops, dangerous to the environment, dangerous to human beings, and illegal. Even if all you do is spray your lawn with commonly available herbicides, fungicides, pesticides and fertilizers you're supposed to be keeping very specific records of what you have done. The reasons for this are many, not the least of which is that having records of what has "gone into the ground" can be invaluable if a problem does arise. Without records like these we'd be scratching our heads like chimps wondering wtf happened.

[thesummerqueen]

Gee Rhythm, it's just plants and dirt...

[The Grand Nudger]

I know right, how complicated could it be...hehehehe. Nothing makes me feel more intellectually inadequate than trying to manage plants and dirt.....lol

[thesummerqueen]

Burning bushes, dude. Burning bushes.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ah, almost forgot....as far as GMO's go...I'd be more concerned with Bt Corn (if I were in the business of being concerned by these sorts of things). The real irony here, is that Bt was the organic movements favorite son until some enterprising motherfucker found a way to bootstrap that process into the crops themselves.

[thesummerqueen]

On the GMO labeling issue, from xkcd -

The universal label.

[thesummerqueen]

Speaking of careless practices, this is something that worries me a bit more, partially because I had my first UTI a couple months ago (girls, if you've never had one, imagine the constant burning, itching sensation of having to pee on top of horrible menstrual-style cramps and general fatigue).

http://grist.org/food/that-bugs-the-late...s-in-meat/