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Originally posted by Chadwickus
reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984
I can't help but thinking this is along the lines of blaming MacDonalds for making your kid fat.
The simple fact is, we over-rely and over use these things.
Of course weeds will adapt and build a resistance to herbicides, it's what they need to do to survive.
Originally posted by Chadwickus
I think it is the same thing, no one forced these farmers to use the same herbicide year in year out.
Originally posted by Chadwickus
A bit of restraint, or changing what herbicides are used would potentially have made this less of a problem.
Originally posted by Chadwickus
I pretty much agree with everything else you say though, although making Monsato the only scapegoat for all this isn't going to help the case in reducing/removing the need for herbicides.
Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
Let me start off by saying i do not dislike GM crops. I used to but then i realised that throughout history we have modified crops, now we can do it in a more precise way.
[edit on 7-5-2010 by ImaginaryReality1984]
Originally posted by Asktheanimals
I believe you are mistaken my friend. What we used to do in the past is take the best of each plant strain and cross-breed them to get the most beneficial aspects of each plant together into one plant (or animal ).
No longer. What we do now is splice genes and insert them directly into the DNA strands. Say you have a tomato, they then take a gene from a flounder (im not making this up!) that keeps it from freezing at great depths and splice that into the tomato gene sequence.
Originally posted by Asktheanimals
Monsanto's business practices are so feudalistic anyone who uses their products becomes a permanent serf to Monsanto, unable to break away and plant the old varieties. They have driven many, many US farmers into bankruptcy and I will never consider them to be an ethical or moral business interest.
Originally posted by Asktheanimals
I forgot to add that each year the world loses hundreds, perhaps thousands of varieties of heirloom plants that have taken thousands of years to perfect. They have fed us since the dawn of civilization now they are being replaced by corporate products with unknown viability in the long run. Nature favors diversity and this is a losing proposition my friend.
Originally posted by Cauch1
Asktheanimals is right about how we have selectively bred plants.
Also it is not the use of the herbicide that causes the weeds to evolve, it is cross-pollination between the GM crops and the existing weeds.
While I agree the hydroponics is a viable way of producing clean food, there is nothing wrong with producing food the traditional way. To me hydroponics always smacks of a time when we have destroyed all of the natural environment and the world is so overcrowded that we have to grow food in artificial conditions. Yes thats really just my imagination playing with me, but its still what I think.
-Cauch1
Of course they forgot about evolution,
Originally posted by randyvs
EVOLUTION?
Get out! Has everybody just forgotten
the real terminology for this? It is adaptation not the more unscientific
evolution. Got it? Good.
[edit on 7-5-2010 by randyvs]
Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
reply to post by bobs_uruncle
I find your post fascinating however i must ask why you kept the lights so far from the plants. You obviously knew what you were doing and yet you ignored the invrese square law. With water cooled or even air cooled lights you could have lowered them far closer to the plants. This would mean you needed to use less lights and at the same time increased your yields.