Bt corn turns out to be great monarch habitat

[Mike Quinn]

One relevant quote you neglected to include: "The researchers stress,
however, that their results are preliminary and still under review by other
experts."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Cherubini [mailto:monarch at saber.net]
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 10:24 PM
> To: dplex-l at raven.cc.ku.edu
> Cc: Leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Bt corn turns out to be great monarch habitat
> 
> 
> http://www.biotech-info.net/low_risk.html
> 
> *  Comparisons of butterfly survival in conventional cornfields and 
> in plots of GM corn turned up no significant differences in Minnesota,
> Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and southern Ontario.
> 
> *  the monarchs fared better at the edges of one Minnesota GM 
> cornfield than they did in a nearby wooded area, said William 
> Hutchison, 
> an entomologist at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.
> 
> *  the monarchs in the studies seemed to prefer cornfields to 
> other areas 
> for laying eggs. 
> 
> *  pollen rarely collected on milkweed leaves in lethal 
> concentrations what 
> did land on the leaves often was washed away by rain or blown 
> off by wind. 
> The concentrations found in the Iowa studies were too low to 
> impose even
> minor effects on the monarchs, said Hellmich at Iowa State. 
> 
> * In one Minnesota study near Rosemount, researchers placed potted 
> milkweed plants at the edge of a cornfield, on a strip of soil around 
> the field and close to a nearby wooded area. They monitored 
> caterpillars
> on the plants and found no significant differences between 
> those near Bt
> and non-Bt corn, Hutchison said. But they were surprised to find that 
> more caterpillars died near the forest than near the corn. 
> 
> * in Maryland, researchers studied sweet corn, which generally is 
> heavily sprayed with synthetic insecticides as an alternative 
> to Bt corn. 
> They found the caterpillars quickly died in sprayed fields. But in 
> non-sprayed fields, there was no difference between Bt corn and the
> conventional varieties, said Galen Dively of the University 
> of Maryland 
> in College Park.
> 

 
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