Genetically modified grass (not) blamed for mass cattle deaths in Texas

good god......now the cattle supply is being poisoned????? wtf is next?? poultry??? seafood????

Originally posted by kosmicjack
reply to post by Ladysophiaofsandoz

 

This is my big question too.

Also does it give off actual gas or is it IN the grass and must be eaten?

Good question. My initial reading had me believing it the grass was actually off-gassing cyanide into the air that the cattle were then breathing. But further reading leads me to believe the plants and pulling up cyanide from the soil, or producing it themselves, and the cattle are consuming it.

Originally posted by Char-Lee
reply to post by Nspekta

 

An odd thing is it just happened? They said they have been using it for sometime...strange. if it is that deadly.

According to the article, scinetists are guessing it may be a combination of factors, including drought.

Preliminary tests revealed the Tifton 85 grass, which has been here for years, had suddenly started producing cyanide gas, poisoning the cattle.

"Coming off the drought that we had the last two years ... we're concerned it was a combination of events that led us to this," Dr. Gary Warner, an Elgin veterinarian and cattle specialist who conducted the 15 necropsies, told Kelly.

What is more worrisome: Other farmers have tested their Tifton 85 grass, and several in Bastrop County have found their fields are also toxic with cyanide. However, no other cattle have died.

Bermuda grass is a spreader, you can't stop the normal stuff, it takes over everything. Wonder what it was modified to do.

Yeah, the stuff is basically unstoppable. I've seen it survive being covered under black plastic for two years!I had no idea it had been gmoified in the past. Thats a frightening prospect.

More Info about Tifton 85

"Tifton 85 was selected for deep, droughty sands. It has improved drought tolerance when compared to coastal. It does okay in clay and blacklands, although black soil is not a good bermudagrass site. It can be planted in deep East Texas and as far west as Pecos and up to Lubbock, if you irrigate it."

"It's expensive, so you must be serious. I do not recommend it for a cow/calf producer. It's hard to pay $150 to $200 per acre and make that ever pencil out, but if you're in the horse hay business or run stocker cattle, you can pay that back pretty quick," he suggested.

www.texasfarmbureau.org...

Tifton 85 is a more recent variety that has been around for more than 10 years and is increasingly being adopted because of its superior nutritive value and production.

cflag.ifas.ufl.edu...

Does nature not produce perfect grass already? Why do we feel the need to change everything? To make it "better". Why change grass in the first place? I can see changing corn or soy to become more resistant to disease or parasites (though i don't agree that we should do it at all) but why change grass? Does Texas not have enough natural grass growing already? I mean here in Minnesota it's hard to stop the grass from growing in your garden let alone the pasture.

It took nature millions of years to acheive the perfect balance we have and humans come along and unravel it.

reply to post by stanguilles7


Thanks for the info gives a better picture of whats happening and why.

reply to post by Char-Lee

Bermuda grass is a spreader, you can't stop the normal stuff, it takes over everything. Wonder what it was modified to do.

considering poisoning the environment is the end result of everything Monster Inc. does...

bio-weapon would be my guess

and considering their history,
i'd say it was waaaay past time the Anathema was invoked upon them

S&F

PLEASE none of you guys come to the UK.. I do not want any pollen on your clothes mixing with our native species...

Damn...

When are you guys gonna take control of your own bloody country????

Cyanide build up due to moisture levels in certain grasses is nothing new. It normally is more a problem in sorghum - sudan grasses. Maybe those grasses are part of the GM process.

Originally posted by roadgravel
Cyanide build up due to moisture levels in certain grasses is nothing new. It normally is more a problem in sorghum - sudan grasses. Maybe those grasses are part of the GM process.

Interesting. That seems to imply the cyanide is pulled into the plants from the soil, and then consumed by the Animals. My understanding based on the article is the Tifton 80 is actually producing cyanide on it's own? Is that an incorrect reading?

Cyanide poisoning of livestock by way of cyanide buildup in grasses and other plants cultivated for cattle grazing have been so problematic that botanists have developed strains of cattle-grazing plants resistant to the buildup of large amounts of cyanide.

Read more: Cyanide Effects on Plants | eHow.com www.ehow.com...

Originally posted by Ladysophiaofsandoz
Acacia trees produce poison to kill Kudu (antelope) to protect themselves from overgrazing. They ( the plants) communicate chemically to warn nearby plants to also produce the poison. Maybe the plants are sending Monsanto a message. Maybe with all the splicing going on they worked in something "intelligent" enough to fight back say genetic material from an animal or a virus. Viruses are pretty crafty when you think about it.

Makes me wonder. Anyone else catch the thread about tick bites and meat allergies? Just saying ticks have been around for a while now seems kinds strange for something like that to pop up and the whole thing about it being an allergy to the sugars not the proteins. Just a thought.

Clearly when you change something from nature, there is no way to do as nature does it.

You can't check to see that if cows that ate a certain grain with a certain enzyme did not cause a reaction in grass you modified when the pee on it...so many things that cannot be checked and time will show us the foolish mistake of covering our planet in modified plants.

Personally I think this alone is enough for a doom thread that should scar anyone to death! I doubt we will survive the scientists creativity!

Originally posted by TDawgRex
And people keep saying that Monsato & DeKalb are good for us.

Hell, I'll let Monsato splice some cockroach genes into me. I may never die, but I will be uglier than usual.

Something scary too, is that the seed vault in the arctic is all GMO, so if the earth loses everything they want to own all that can grow again and all is monster seed.

The whole idea of mish mashing plant, animal,and virus DNA is a little scary. I worry we will see more viruses and bacteria making the jump from one to the other with more ease. These are interesting times we live in who needs monster movies when we have face eating crazies and grass that can kill. I watch at the edge of my seat only hope there will be time to refill my popcorn before it gets to the good part. Gee I really hope this one has a happy ending.

The thing that gets me, if you're an evolution thinking person, is:

If evolution took so many millions of years of trial and error in regards to selecting what parts of plants and animals carry on and what parts don't.

Why would the brilliant minds believe that they no matter how brilliant they are, are no Mother Nature, and couldn't possibly know the best means to go about Evolving plants beyond their evolutionary means.

Wouldn't the Modified plants just try to counter react the modification in the 1st place?

A self correcting protocol so to speak.

Seems poisons are in many plants as means to defend and reproduce, attract for pollination.
Even the Movie " The Happening " had me researching the ability of plants to one day rise up against us as a threat.

Who's to say we mess with things too much, and we find ourselves at the bottom of the food chain again...

Seriously....

Why are you not stomping their guts out?????

reply to post by Char-Lee



Good point I wondered about the vault myself. Hope someone here may know.

Originally posted by EvanB
Seriously....

Why are you not stomping their guts out?????

For several reasons, which basically boil down to money and power. Monsanto is a very, very powerful multi-national corporation. They have infiltrated government deeply. (Tom Vilsac is U.S. Secretary of Agriculture!!)

Only a small fraction of the population are even informed and energized enough to mobilize against them, and it's a losing battle because Big Agra and Monsanto own the politicians, who own the cops, who enforce the laws. While your country has been fairly successful in limiting GMO products and crops, the US is just too deeply controlled by the companies who profit from these crops. And many, MANY people in the US who might be sympathetic to the movement if they were informed are just too stupid to grasp all the reasons why GMO is bad. Is a losing battle, unfortunately.

reply to post by Char-Lee


oh, crap.....forgot about The Vault........dang......that's something to worry about, too.....Monsanto may have its' claws in that, too....to think of a possible global meltdown.....and Monsanto having anything to do with The Vault....could still have potentially deadly effects on the food supply

Originally posted by Char-Lee

Originally posted by TDawgRex
And people keep saying that Monsato & DeKalb are good for us.

Hell, I'll let Monsato splice some cockroach genes into me. I may never die, but I will be uglier than usual.

Something scary too, is that the seed vault in the arctic is all GMO, so if the earth loses everything they want to own all that can grow again and all is monster seed.

You've been misinformed. The seed vault is not 'all GMO', as it is made up of thousands of native seeds developed over millenia from all around the world.The misconception you are repeating comes from the fact that Monsanto is one of the major corporate sponsors of the vault. But this does nto mean all the seeds are GMO. They arent.

I wouldn't worry, if the vault was constructed by the same company that made the grass, then the vault will either leak or fill with cyanide gas rendering all seeds useless.

Problem solved

But honestly, how can someone really feel that money is worth the end of humanity?

I don't even need to make up doom porn here, it's very simple for people to see, mess with our food, mess with our lives. It only takes one messed up strain to dominate the rest of local plantlife.

reply to post by stanguilles7

It is normally a build up in the plant. I don't know anything about off gassing as some here have mentioned.

Wonder if this will make many people wary of buying Tifton hay bailed this summer for winter feeding this year.