Pests Damaging Biotech Corn, Getting an Early Start

Corn that has been genetically engineered by Monsanto Co. to kill pests is being damaged by those pests instead - and it's weeks earlier than they typically show up.

June 15, 2012 | Source: STLToday | by Georgina Gustin

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Illinois corn growers are seeing problems already.

Corn that has been genetically engineered by Monsanto Co. to kill pests is being damaged by those pests instead – and it’s weeks earlier than they typically show up.

“We’re still early in the growing season, and the adults are about a month ahead of schedule,” explained Mike Gray, a professor of entomology with the University of Illinois. “I was surprised to see them – and there were a lot.”

Last year, farmers in several states found that the western corn rootworm – a major crop pest that has the potential to seriously reduce yields – was surviving after ingesting an insecticidal toxin produced by the corn plants. The corn, launched in 2003, is engineered to produce a protein, known as Cry3Bb1, derived from a bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. The rootworms ingest the roots of the corn, known as “Bt corn,” and the protein is fatal.

But farmers in six states last year reported damage from rootworm to Bt corn – a sign that the product, which was grown on 37 million acres in 2011, could be losing its efficacy.

The reports last year came after Iowa State University researcher, Aaron Gassmann, published a study saying that the rootworms were becoming resistant to the product, creating so-called “superbugs” in Iowa fields.

Gray said that resistance has not been proven in Illinois fields, but the rootworms found in Illinois have been bred in a lab at Iowa State to determine if resistance is developing, or being passed from one generation to the next.

“That’s the suspicion. We’re careful not to use the resistance word here in Illinois,” he said. “But it matches what Gassmann has seen so far.”

Gray said he got a call from a seed dealer who told him he had spotted the damage in a Cass County field. Last year, farmers reported damage in LaSalle, Whiteside and Henry counties.