There's an article here about the fines levied against Prodigene for the
Nebraska mess.


http://www.yorknewstimes.com/stories...20702010.shtml

An earlier article said the farmer was told to pull the corn plants and
remove them. He didn¹t do it. I wonder if Prodigene will sue the farmer
for his laziness.
Let's say the contamination wasn't detected. What could happen as far as
health effects? How dangerous is this in the real world?




Dean



-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

On 12/7/02 4:11 PM, in article ,
"Gordon Couger" wrote:


"Dean Hoffman" wrote in message
...


There's an article here about the fines levied against Prodigene for the
Nebraska mess.


http://www.yorknewstimes.com/stories...20702010.shtml

An earlier article said the farmer was told to pull the corn plants and
remove them. He didn¹t do it. I wonder if Prodigene will sue the farmer
for his laziness.
Let's say the contamination wasn't detected. What could happen as far
as
health effects? How dangerous is this in the real world?

Probably it has no health cosciquecse at all. If it did get ground up into
the human food supply the concentration would be so low that no known poison
or allergen would have any effect. The problem is with public confidence.
Every step is on public trial and we can't afford foolish errors like this.
There is no reason that we can't raise a crop isolated from others of the
same kind. But you can't do it by following the pharm crop with a food crop
of the same thing.

You eat lot more rat turds in your bread than there would have been
pharicutial corn in the corn from that feild.

Gordon


I like your idea of growing the drug producing corn plants somewhere
else besides the Corn Belt. The yields might be less but who would care? We
get tornadoes and some pretty strong straight winds in eastern Nebraska. I
don't know how it would be possible to completely eliminate cross
pollination. The farmer with the regular crop would have no idea if his
field was cross pollinated. It would probably make no difference but would
it be worth it in this time of class action lawsuits?
Seed corn companies use isolation crops planted at the edges of their seed
fields. The isolation crops are destroyed after the field is pollinated.
The worst that would happen is their hybrid isn't pure.
Corn pollen isn't viable for too long a period but who knows when a good
wind will blow. Old timers say red dirt was blowing up here during the
Depression. That would've had to come from your area. I would think corn
pollen could travel farther.
People might be doing more potential harm to themselves by careless food
handling at home than anything else that happens in the food chain. Even
Ecoli wouldn't be a problem if food is cooked properly. It shouldn't get to
the grocery store in the first place though.


By the way, Okie State did good a couple weeks ago. It's always good to
hear OU got their butts kicked.


Dean



-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

Dean Hoffman writes

I like your idea of growing the drug producing corn plants somewhere
else besides the Corn Belt. The yields might be less but who would care? We
get tornadoes and some pretty strong straight winds in eastern Nebraska. I
don't know how it would be possible to completely eliminate cross
pollination.

Do tornadoes occur before the end of tasselling?



--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

Gordon Couger writes

If you are in the neighborhood in sort season and want to chase one we can
fix you up.

Don't say things like that.

It's tempting ....

But not at that time of year. :-(

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

On Sat, 7 Dec 2002 20:12:26 -0600, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:


Pollen that is carried very far on the wind is not variable. it dehydrates.
We can measure the dust from China blowing over here so it carries a good
way. Every once in a while we get smoke in the upper atmosphere from Mexico
burning sugar cane before harvest.

I think you mean "viable", not "variable." Maize pollen viability
depends on time, temperature, and humidity. Viability falls rapidly
in hot, dry conditions but pollen can be viable for hours in cool,
moist conditions. That's long enough for pollen to travel into the
next county (if not farther) when winds are strong.

---
Remove the obvious spamtrap to reply.
Unit #02582: Endangered Old-Growth Redwood
Toothpick Artisans, LLC [TINEO-GRTALLC]

On 12/8/02 1:12 AM, in article , "Oz"
wrote:

Dean Hoffman writes

I like your idea of growing the drug producing corn plants somewhere
else besides the Corn Belt. The yields might be less but who would care? We
get tornadoes and some pretty strong straight winds in eastern Nebraska. I
don't know how it would be possible to completely eliminate cross
pollination.

Do tornadoes occur before the end of tasselling?


I live a few hundred miles north of Gordon so spring arrives a little
later here. Nebraska usually gets the most frequent and violent storms from
about April 1 to about June 15. Warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico
collides with cold air from Canada and can release a lot of energy. Corn
tasselling usually starts around July 4 in my area. That's a big holiday in
the U.S. you know. That holiday has something to do with an ill tempered
king from the 1770's.
We do get some fairly strong straight winds at times. The worst one was
in late July/early August of 1993. There were sustained winds in excess of
100 mph. These, like tornadoes, seem to come out of nowhere. Weather
alerts are getting better, thanks to the tornado chasers Gordon works with.
The latest occurring tornado I remember was, I think, in October of 2001.
It was just before harvest and caused a lot of damage. Corn harvest was
really tough as the corn plants were broken off below the ear. Some of the
ears were sucked right out of the husks and went somewhere. The farmers
combined as much as possible, then turned cattle in the fields to clean up.
Tornadoes can also result from hurricanes. The people along the Gulf
Coast and eastern seaboard can get hit really hard.
The strongest tornado I heard about was in Texas. It hit an area where
there were no basements. The soil was too rocky. News accounts said the
tornado ripped up a blacktop road.

Dean







-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----