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Showing posts with label corn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corn. Show all posts

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Word On Seeds....

Well I was talking to Silver and the kids about watermelons, and an interesting question came up. How do you get seeds for “seedless” watermelons? Now I know that those white “seeds” are seeds, but anyone who has grown watermelons and has seen the seeds you plant for them. Know they are not those little white “seeds”. So if the watermelons don't produce a standard seed, how DO you get the seed?


That brought on another question, as my reply to Silver asking about seeds for seedless watermelon was. “The same way you get seeds for a GMO that has the terminator gene in it.” Which as anyone knows, isn't an answer.


So, how do they get the seed stock for the terminator plants? I imagine you can make a new batch every year, but here is another few questions. What happens if they make a mistake? Where would they get the original seed to genetically modify? I imagine that eventually if they have their way with it that, there would be no seed without some “markers” from the GM corn. Look at Mexico for example, where they did not allow GM corn to go into their country as seed corn. Now though, due to the fact that they did allow “food stuffs” to come in with GM corn. So what did the “poor” farmers there do? They take some of any of the corn they eat and save it to grow. Now they are finding in different places around Mexico that some of the GM corn “genes” are mutating their corn plants. Sometimes so that the plant is producing multiple ears per leaf. Now on any standard corn plants they only have one per leaf. The officials are telling the people to NOT EAT OR SAVE THE SEEDS. They even want the farmers to destroy them. What does that tell you about the GM genes?


What happens when the terminator gene crosses over there? Mexico has many varieties of corn that are only seen there. They plant their corn near the “wild” types that corn came from way back when. So the wild corn is a grass, so if that “gene” jumps to the “wild” type would it then cross over to standard grass?


So, back tot he original question that led to this, seedless watermelon seeds. Well we have been told that the seedless types are a hybrid, now my mother says seedless ones have no flavor. She is right the seedless ones to me seem to not have the “flavor” I associate with WATERMELON, so is that a good side affect of the hybrid? Also why would you hybridize a plant to not produce a viable seed? What is the point of that?


One could almost question, are seedless watermelons a GMO in disguise? It would make more sense than “forcing” nature to do something unnatural. Producing something without any seed is not that far from producing one with a sterile seed. The big difference here is corn the “vegetable” part is the seed. Whereas the watermelon it has nothing to do with the seed. So we go back to where the “greed” of the BIG M and the idea of their terminator gene come into play. If the farmer that is buying watermelon seeds from you cannot use the seeds from the watermelon he grows because there are none then he has to keep buying from the seed company. Which is what happens with the terminator gene that is out there. Makes good money sense doesn't it? To the seed company any way....


Makes you think doesn't it?

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Visitor Cleaning day

Well, I have a visitor coming this weekend; my mother. She is coming to see her grandkids, she is also taking them to meet their great grandparents. She is suppose to leave tomorrow from Chicago, I am guessing she will take the kiddo's on Saturday. that way she will have them back for the 4th celebration near us on Sunday. My grandparents live to the south of us, I'd wager an hour of 2 drive.

So this morning after my normal rounds, we had the kids do some work around the front yard. Silver got the weed wacker out and cut down some of the grasses and they got added to our growing compost pile. I turned it this morning and was happy to see that it was starting to turn blackish in color. I also weeded my herbs, my basil is taking off. Also the Chamomile is forming flowers and I hope it gets some runners soon. I cut our dill back and I put it into the dehydrator and plugged it in... and it didn't start...

Well I hope with the heat we have been getting and the fact that our window a/c unit takes the humidity out of the air, it will dry on it's own. We will see, and now we are in the market for a new one. I wonder how much it would cost us to build a big wooden one?

Oh interesting news article I came across today:

..and I just love this quote:
"this year's corn crop will be 92.3 million acres, the second-biggest since 1944."

Now I have a couple problems with that, first... Yep lots of acres planted, I bet if you look it up it's feed corn. which if you figure in feeding it to cattle/chickens/pigs yep meat prices might go down. Second figuring in the "feed corn" statement again that is GMO corn... YIPPEE!
Then there is my last, but most important problem with this. That number is based on the planted corn, not what has grown and been harvested. We don't know for sure that every acre that has been planted will grow correctly.

This goes along the "counting chickens before they are hatched" thing. That article states that food inflation will go down because of this, again. Only if... the crop harvests to that amount as well. No one can say with 100% accuracy that this crop will grow exactly like it's suppose to with no problems.

Maybe people who say that we will be harvesting that much because that much was planted need to go back to the age of 5 when you learned not to plan on everything on your Christmas list appearing under your tree.

Be Well and Blessed Be....

Saturday, June 18, 2011

"Bad?" Corn



I have come across a strange/startling discovery lately while we are driving around. It has to do with our local corn (feed corn) crop. Now last year I had seen some areas in fields that were not as well grown as they others. No big deal right?


Well this year, while driving past at least 3 different corn fields (feed corn). I have seen some puny plants, also large portions of the field just aren't growing at all. I know and you also may know that old line about how corn should be” knee high by the 4th of July.” At this moment I do not think that thses corn fields will manage that height at all.


Which made me think about something else, people here have heard me talk about what I think of GMO crops. Also my concerns about what they -might- do. Well what if we are already seeing some kind of affect on our crops now from it? Maybe something is going on in their genetics that is making them harder to grow? What if we are heading to a corn blight? What if...?


There is just to many questions about these crops (in my opinion anyway), also to many “what if's'” to really want to have anything to do with those crops. I don't think I will ever grow corn as I worry even with sweet corn that I would have some crossing with a GM product.


My other concern about at least the GM corn, but the others as well. When you have a crop with that “terminator” gene, where does the company get the new seed every year? The whole point on having that gene is to prevent them from producing viable seed. So where are they growing the corn that they use that gene in and how is it that the “seed corn” is/has the “terminator” gene in it?


Am I the only person asking this question?