Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 18 submissions in the queue.

GMO Grass is Creeping Across Oregon

posted by martyb on Monday July 02 2018, @11:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-wait-until-the-Ents-get-loose dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

High Country News reports:

[...] Scotts got permission from the USDA to plant larger fields for seed production. Farmers sowed 80 acres of bentgrass in Canyon County, Idaho, and 420 acres in Jefferson County, Oregon, north of Bend. The Oregon Department of Agriculture picked the site - an irrigated island in the sagebrush sea - to keep the plant far from the Willamette Valley. There, on the western side of the mountains, farmers grow forage and turf grass for a $1 billion-a-year seed industry.

Then two windstorms swept through the eastern Oregon fields in August of 2013, scattering flea-sized seeds well beyond the designated control area. Roundup-resistant pollen fertilized conventional bentgrass plants as far as 13 miles away.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
GMO Grass is Creeping Across Oregon | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 58 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:43AM (#701801)

    The fear-mongering comes from "this stuff is somehow magically worse than 'normal' crops".

    This is a weed when it shows up in a wheat field or whatever your normal crops is. A wheat that is resistant to your weed killer (Roundup).

    So yes, this stuff is "somehow magically" worse than normal weed.

    Which is exactly what the "fear-mongers" have been screaming for years.