
06/11/13, 05:08 PM
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 17,225
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AngieM2
thank you BFF. I got that now. Still think it's silly to give bugs sacrifical offering areas, but that's just what seems silly to me.
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Angie, it is a good idea and would even be a good idea if non bt crops were planted and insecticides were used instead. Think of it this way. In a 100 acre field with pure bt seed say 10 corn borers resist the bt and survive to breed. All (or at least most) of the offspring will carry this resistance. This can result in thousands of new, resistant corn borers. Take that same field and plant 20 acres in refugia. Now there will be 10s of thousands of corn borers. The chance of one of the resistant ones breeding with another is reduced significantly, and the chances decline substantially in subsequent generations. The refugia corn borers pass on their susceptibility to the toxin even if they breed with the resistant specimens (at least most of them). Having 20 percent of a field infested does not destroy 20 percent of the crop, the infested area will probably see a 10 percent decline in production.
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