Anybody grow the Monsanto bt corn? Earworms are not a problem with the natives around here, who have grown-up with a worm in every ear, but the newcomers from Houston are grossed-out by the earworm. One lady came by our table at WalMart and said they "had to throw all the corn away because it had worms in it." I told her that in order to kill the worm, I'd have to use stuff that would kill us as well! She suggested that I go into WalMart and check the sweet corn - no worms. I did, and she was right - no worms!

I think commercial growers are using the bt-engineered sweet corn. The price is coming down - I found it for $7.50 per thousand - but a minimum of 25 thousand seeds. About 200 bucks. And it's not yellow - white and bicolor only.

It's completely harmless to anything but lepidoptera larvae, but I wouldn't feel right without disclosing the seed source. Although I doubt the big commercial growers bother to do that. I'm tempted to buy a 25M bag of it - maybe split it with a couple other gardeners. Worms just devastate our corn every year - not just earworms, which sometimes go halfway down the ear, but also those borers that burrow down into the center of the whorl where the spray can't reach them.

I have no problem with modern science that improves our way of life and enhances food production.

Jack

I am glad I am not on your area-free can and will put hard working farmers out of business. glad you can get several thousand dollars a week in donations (what a decent sized farm should be grossing weekly).

You grow GMO's and since I grow organically and that is very important to my customer base perhaps we would not be in competion at all since my customers would stay away from anyone growing and selling GMO's like the plague.

Monsanto has been less than honest about their science over the years. A lot of their claims are unproven such as there are no health issues with GMO crops and humans. they say this despite never conducting a controlled feeding study in humans lasting more than 6 months (a decent study would have to last at least 10 years). Do you have a problem with Monsanto spying on farmers and taking them to court, often on false pretenses (but still putting those farmers out of business)?

Personally I stay away from all Monsanto products including non GMO seed. i have no need for the soil killing chemicals they produce nor insecticides as I have a good balance of predators to prests in my garden. That is God's way you know-no chemicals.

I agree that there are risks involved all kinds of chemicals - whether agricultural or medical. I also know that there are some people that want organic produce - that's why there's a small section of [usually pretty sorry-looking] organic vegetables in urban supermarkets (none here, because there's no demand for it). We trust our extension agent and Texas A&M University. I haven't asked the extension agent about bt corn yet - but if she says it's okay, that's good enough for me.

I think Monsanto has every right to enforce the contract the grower signs when he buys the seed - they invested millions in R&D to develop this, like the pharmaceutical companies, and have a right to protect their patents.

Churches engage in all sorts of things to raise funds - baking cakes, washing cars, catfish suppers - so why not raise vegetables? There's nothing we could do that wouldn't compete with someone. We only have a couple of market gardeners in our county and they are both comfortably retired and will not be hurt finacially by our project. If they are, we'll give them our donation money.

"That is God's way you know-no chemicals." Hmmm...well, I don't think the Bible is necessarily incompatible with scientific progress - but I suppose you could make a theological case for that. I guess if Eve hadn't
eaten the apple we'd all be living in an organic paradise with no sin, no chemicals, no work and live for 900 years. But she did eat it and we have to live with the results. :)

Much of the lifestyle we enjoy today is made possible by chemistry and related fields. Sometimes mistakes are made and people suffer as a result (especially in medications) but, taken as a whole, chemicals are a blessing to humanity in many ways - including greater life expectancy. I hope God doesn't have a problem with chemicals, as you suggest, because I really don't want to go back to the dark ages - when people were lucky to make age 40 - without modern chemistry and all that it has brought us. Do you? If we are going to give up ag chemicals, we'll have to give-up antibiotics and pain killers as well - not to mention just about everything within my field of vision at this moment. There's no place on the planet where we can avoid chemical exposure - like the millions of tons of carcinogens that the refineries down in Houston release into the air we breathe? There's very little we can do about that - and the cure may be worse than the disease (like $10 gas!)!Life's too short to fight losing battles against the great engine that runs western civilization - if the bugs are eating the tomatoes, spray 'em! That's my motto! :)

Thanks so much for your reply. I was getting lonely here and about to leave. I figured the bt corn post would elicit some response. :) What does "GMO" stand for?

Love and Prayers,

Jack

Jack, God called me to be a farmer and feed the world but God never said I had to give the food away for free. Are you harming the folks in your area who depend on income from market gardening?
I have grown BT sweet corn for 4 years. It allows me to grow mostly worm free corn without the need for synthetic pesticides. 25000 seeds will plant roughly 1.5 acres. If you plant less land the seed should last 3 years. I think Texas is pretty buggy even for BT corn... Bob.

Hi Bob:

We're not harming anyone. There's no farmers market in this county and the only serious market gardener is VERY comfortably retired (and that's an understatement). This is an ethnically diverse, rural county, with 40% of our families living in poverty with household incomes of less than 25K. A majority of our school children are on the free lunch program. We always have given most of our produce away - this program just formalizes it and makes a little money to send our young people on a mission trip now and then (I wonder how much mission "work" actually gets done - but kids blowing my money is the story of my life). :)

All the growers in the project are comfortably retired urban transplants who love to play at being a "farmer" - an excuse to buy tractors and stuff :). Just an old man's hobby, and if it does a little good for someone that's a bonus. I am a retired contractor and my wife was a bank officer - now she sits in the blistering East Texas sun at WalMart all day, visits with other christian ladies (census data for Tyler County, Tx is 87.5% church-affiliated) and gives away tomatoes.

Thanks for the info on the bt corn (That's the "ATTRIBUTE" product in the catalogs, right?) I think we'll go ahead and buy a bag and plant it next year. Is that 3 years at room temp or in the freezer? You say "mostly" worm free. Are you saying it doesn't work, Bob? We do have a lot of bugs alright. If I miss one spraying the earworms will comletely destroy the crop - 3 or 4 in an ear and eat all the way down the cob! Seems like it's gotten a lot worse. I was raised here and my grandfather's corn had maybe one harmless worm on the tip of the ear - guess it's Revenge of the Lepidoptera for all the sinful chemicals we use. :)

Thanks, Bob.

Jack

All I know if i was in Tyler Cty and even thought of trying to better my situation by trying to grow a few vegies and sell them id be screwed. If I were you jack I would make the offer to all the poor people and tell them to grow vegies and you will buy them at market price then you can give them away to food banks or the local food pantry. Regards Scott

Well, this particular aspect of our project never really occurred to us until I posted here a couple weeks ago. I can really understand what you're saying. It seemed like an appropriate fund raising activity for a church when we discussed it - no different than bake sales or fish fries. We used to haul our veggies to church where members would load them up and individually distribute them to friends, neighbors, poor families, etc. A lot went to waste. So we decided to distribute them more formally for a donation. We definitely do not want to be in "business" and sell stuff for profit - either as a church or individually - and the last thing we want to do is harm anyone financially. If that becomes a problem locally, we will certainly re-evaluate the project.

Baptist churches in these rural areas of Texas have lots of members who grew-up on the farm, spent their working lives in the city and return to their [often inherited] homestead in retirement. They have extra money and loads of time. Cattle are most popular but many buy farm equipment and plant huge gardens. A few penny pinchers sit on the highway and sell their stuff, but most take it to town and just and give it away - with great pride and pleasure :). Bushels of free corn, tomatoes and squash are a common sight on the front porches of local businesses in early summer. That's probably why we've never been able to get a farmer's market going here. One local church has free veggies every saturday in their parking lot and has done that for years. By July, it's hard to give tomatoes away - everyone is glutted with them! Serious for-profit growers can haul their produce down to the big farmers markets on the northside of Houston - but I hear that you almost have to be certified organic to tap that sophisticated market.

Our vision is simply to use all that surplus produce to benefit mission programs, locally and around the world. I have learned from y'all on this forum that there could be unanticipated negatives. I will bring this up at our next business meeting at church and convey your concerns to them.

I am very sympathetic with the concerns expressed here. If one of our larger churches were to adopt this program and haul the produce down to the big farmers markets in Houston I suppose it could stir up a lot of....trouble. That never crossed our mind. I hope we haven't opened a can of worms that will cause y'all problems - it wasn't our intent. Meanwhile, I may be better off on some other forum. :)

Love and Prayers,

Jack