Hi Guys,
I've been away for awhile, some interesting stuff lately. I'm struggling with all of this GMO talk lately and am looking for some good comments to help me around this issue. First off, with Round-up ready Canola, we've been told that a lot of premium markets have been lost. That brings me to my concern over my bread and butter - red spring wheat. I read that 70% of our customers will give us the golden kiss-off if we try to peddle this stuff. Politics out of it, the customer is always right. It doesn't matter why they presume they are right, they are right, and they'll prove it with their dollars. On wheat, the US has said no way, but here in Canada, Monsanto is proceding with registration, I think in a less than up-front way. Here is my dilemna, the Western Barely Growers say that we should not concern ourselves with customer preferences, we should only consider the agronomic benefits, ie. Round-up kills everything. They say that this is good agronomic management, resulting in lower use of tillage and herbicides. But, watching a neighbor doing all of this with canola, I am starting to wonder. Is this better agronomics in the long run? He is trying to cash in on canola returns by seeding and re-seeding canola every year. He had a runaway weed problem, but round up ready canola cleaned that up (kind of like a nuclear response, isn't it). Now, he doesn't worry about rotational management, because he can 'nuke' his problem. In the old days, we used variations of chemical application and crop rotation to, I suppose, confuse weeds, and keep them at bay. But now, we can 'nuke' them. But, this past year, my neighbor had a new problem - a weed he couldn't kill that used to be a crop. So, my question is, are we creating a problem by relying so much on one chemical for all of our weed control, and is round-up ready grains a solution to agronomic problems or a quick fix to band-aid over poor management practices? I am still bothered by the fact that after 10 years or GMO research, the only outcome has been products that are glyphosphate resistent (Monsanto) when we were promised all kinds of heroic things that would cure everything from acne to cancer. If I were to choose to grow a round-up ready wheat when it became available, I want to be 100% sure that it is not only the correct management decision, but also, in the very long term, the correct moral decision. Any body interested in passing on their ideas?
Rockpile
I've been away for awhile, some interesting stuff lately. I'm struggling with all of this GMO talk lately and am looking for some good comments to help me around this issue. First off, with Round-up ready Canola, we've been told that a lot of premium markets have been lost. That brings me to my concern over my bread and butter - red spring wheat. I read that 70% of our customers will give us the golden kiss-off if we try to peddle this stuff. Politics out of it, the customer is always right. It doesn't matter why they presume they are right, they are right, and they'll prove it with their dollars. On wheat, the US has said no way, but here in Canada, Monsanto is proceding with registration, I think in a less than up-front way. Here is my dilemna, the Western Barely Growers say that we should not concern ourselves with customer preferences, we should only consider the agronomic benefits, ie. Round-up kills everything. They say that this is good agronomic management, resulting in lower use of tillage and herbicides. But, watching a neighbor doing all of this with canola, I am starting to wonder. Is this better agronomics in the long run? He is trying to cash in on canola returns by seeding and re-seeding canola every year. He had a runaway weed problem, but round up ready canola cleaned that up (kind of like a nuclear response, isn't it). Now, he doesn't worry about rotational management, because he can 'nuke' his problem. In the old days, we used variations of chemical application and crop rotation to, I suppose, confuse weeds, and keep them at bay. But now, we can 'nuke' them. But, this past year, my neighbor had a new problem - a weed he couldn't kill that used to be a crop. So, my question is, are we creating a problem by relying so much on one chemical for all of our weed control, and is round-up ready grains a solution to agronomic problems or a quick fix to band-aid over poor management practices? I am still bothered by the fact that after 10 years or GMO research, the only outcome has been products that are glyphosphate resistent (Monsanto) when we were promised all kinds of heroic things that would cure everything from acne to cancer. If I were to choose to grow a round-up ready wheat when it became available, I want to be 100% sure that it is not only the correct management decision, but also, in the very long term, the correct moral decision. Any body interested in passing on their ideas?
Rockpile
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