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Essay #3916. Greed and Seed. Version #7.1
This page reads better on pdf here: www.lawyerdude.8m.com/3916.pdf
See also my essay #4076 - How to convert a seed to homozygosity at http://www.lawyerdude.8m.net/4076.html
Original writing: Sunday, August 6, 2000. 7:31 AM. See revision list.
File: WordPerfect/.. . .Projects . . ./Actually completed. . ./Greed and Seed/3916 Greed and Seed. Version #3 written 4 Aug 2000. Version #4 written 4 August 2000 at 9 pm. Version 5: 6 August. Added research findings from internet.Version #6 Thursday, August 10, 2000. 9:32 PM. Updated after refreshing my memory regarding F1 generation and homozygous seeds. Revised to 7.1 Wednesday, November 1, 2000. 5:19 AM
To My Fellow Farm folks in Allen Township(actually I sent this to just a few people: Bernard Jenkins, and Mike the Manager of the Farmer's Elevator) : I welcome your help and your comments.
Summary: With corn prices this low, farmers must now learn that, like Dorothy, you had the answer there all the time. The Wizard (Pioneer seeds) was lying when they told you that you cannot grown your own corn seeds - - and you never learned how. In times of low prices, farmers must reach for solutions. Assert your independence. Grow your own seeds - like your ancestors did! At least preserve your right to grow seeds. In accompanying essay #3990 I have proposed legislation to ensure that seeds will be fertile and the seed companies will be required to stop lying to us. Both this document and #3990 are evolving and are not perfect. If you received this via email or the web, then you are seeing the Web version using HTML (hypertext mark up language) which does not incorporate all of the columns and correct page numbering of WordPerfect.
Having spent my childhood in Allen township and having then lived away from Allen township and now having returned and left again, I can tell you from personal observation that you in Allen township have a way of life that is self-sustaining, healthy, and stable - and with the internet you are no longer intellectually isolated. Your life-style is the envy of many folks - and you will lose it if you won't wake up!
Today I am concerned with the high price of seed corn ($115 per bushel) compared to the low price that you receive for corn ($1.50 today?). Corporate farms do not sell like you do, but now Cargill and its fellow corporate ficta have you caught in a noose. They buy your corn and sell you overpriced seeds which you do not need. You don't even know that your forefathers used their own corn for seed - and so can you. In times of low prices, you should be growing your own seed. By your own intellectual laziness you have created your own demise. It is not too late.
The entire intellectual property area is greedy corporate ficta in action - descendants of the gypsies, jews(1), scribes, and pharisees - plying their trades of deception and predation. The seed companies want to do what the music industry has done - take the money away from those who produce - and put it in the hands of the people at the top. In pursuit of that effort Seed Companies in 1970 talked Congress into passing the plant protection act to prevent you from growing your own seeds - but Congress gave you an exception - and furthermore, seed corn companies are not protected because their seeds are not uniform nor stable genetically speaking - and arguably, those are required traits for protection, and the seed companies have now proven it because although they ask you to agree to their contract printed on the bag to permit them to put both feet in the trough, they really don't even trust you that far. For years they have been designing seed to be sterile - and that is just another example of the stealthy encroachment of corporate ficta who are older and more treacherous then we will ever live to be.
Contents:
Farmer's Issue #1. In times of low corn prices we should be growing our own seed but lies of Pioneer and other corporate ficta thwart farmers in their effort to survive - and the Universities don't expose the lies! 1
Farmer's Issue #2. The Illinois High-Oil selection program was used to obtain high oil corn - - and Illinois farmer should reap the benefits. Instead, Dupont is stepping in to take the profit out of farming - and adding insult to injury by using our own tax dollars against us! 1
Farmer's Issue #3. We could just as readily have heirloom seeds that produce high oil corn. The Illinois High-Oil selection program provided the genetic coding for high oil. Why isn't the University of Illinois helping us Illinois farmers with this? And what about the cooperative extension service? Are they willfully promoting the lies - or are they simply ignorant? 1
Farmer's Issue #4. Monsanto and Dupont and their newly acquired fat corporate ficta Dekalb and Pioneer have available 3 methods to make sure that we don't use our crop for next year's seed. It is as bad as if Deere refused to sell tractors and only rented them to us. The 3 methods are: #1 selling us hybrid instead of heirloom seeds; #2 selling us male sterile and female sterile seeds; #3 the terminator gene which renders all seeds sterile - even ones in adjoining fields. 1
Mendelian distribution in the post F1 generation 1
pink male sterile seeds and blue female crippled seed. The pink seed - the vast majority is indeed sterile 1
The terminator gene 1
Genesis of this Essay. 2
Greed and Seed 3
In fact, the blue seeds have only one purpose: To ensure that the corn produced will be sterile - so we are dependent on corporate ficta!! 3
Glossary - Remedial Genetics and Botany for Farmers about to go broke from their own failure to remember how their grandfather's fathers selected corn seed. 4
Angiosperm 4
Anther 4
Bull rows 4
Carpel (1835 word) - fused carpels is an ear of corn. 4
Corn silk 4
DNA 4
Dominant trait 4
Embryo 4
Endosperm - 1850 5
Female plant 5
F1 generation. 5
Gametophyte. an 1889 word. 5
Genotype. 5
Heterosis. 6
Heterosporous. 6
Heterospory - 1898. 6
Hybrid 6
Hybrid vigor - technical name: heterosis. 6
Hybridization 6
Homozygous. A 1902 word. 6
Male plant 7
Megasporangium. 7
Megaspore. 7
Mendel's rules 7
Microspore 7
Nucellus - 1882 - Latin: small nut. Kernel. 7
Ovary 8
Ovule. 8
Phenotype. 8
Pistil 8
Pollen grain. An 1835 word. The first settlers came to Allen township in 1850. They were corn farmers - probably with this word on the tips of their tongues. It was probably the cool thing to say back then . . .before the word "homozygous" had been invented. 8
Recessive trait 8
Sporophyte 8
Stamen 8
Stigma 8
Style 8
Tassel 8
Some basic corn facts - Detassling and the reason we do it 9
Okay, so if they don't give us high oil, then what do da blue seeds do? 10
What interest does the greedy Corporate Seed Company have in the genetic makeup of a the tiny germ
at the tip of a kernel that will be ground or otherwise used for feed or food?
10
Let's take a look at the botanical genetics involved. 10
If I were farming I would be testing this theory; If the universities worked for us, they would save us the trouble. If the magazines wrote for us, we would already know. If Orion Samuelson were on our side (instead of being paid by our enemies, Pioneer and Dekalb) he would have told us. 11
Hey you, Mr. Farmer, those blue pollinator kernels are not really magic beans! Just the opposite: they make your corn sterile! Just a thought here: Hmm, if a seed cannot by itself produce a crop, then is it even rightfully called a seed? Pioneer, Dekalb and Wyffels lie to you. 11
The pollen does indeed influence the traits of the kernel - but heterozygous reproduction is not essential
for high oil content! You already paid for the research when you bought the Illinois high-oil selection
program; Now Monsanto and Dupont are stealing the results from you.
11
Remedial Genetics - Gregor Mendel - a Monk and his peas. The Dekalb Big Lie: The Pollen gives you high oil. Ha! 11
Query: Is this policy of sterile seeds the product of Monsanto and Dupont? 12
Research Results from the Internet. Basic Facts about High Oil Corn. 12
From Ohio State University Website 12
From University of Illinois Website 13
From Wyffels Website 13
Inquiry to Wyffels by email 13
From Dupont Website. They own 100% of Pioneer since 1 Oct 1999. 13
Inquiry to Dupont/ Pioneer by email 14
Wyffels site is deceptive and intrusive 14
Inquiry to University of Illinois by email 14
Another big corporate lie - the oil comes from the embryo which, of course depends on pollen from the blue kernels 15
Players in the sterile seed wars 16
How the Terminator terminates: 17
Douglas Palaschak's prioritized list of books that farm folk and an enlightened populace should own and read weekly: 29
The Robber Barons. 1935. Matthew Josephson. A must. 29
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Available at Barnes and Noble or from Loompanics Press, box 1197 Port Townsend Washington. 29
House of Morgan. Big thick book. Tells how J.P. Morgan thwarted competition, bribed, manipulated the currency, and plundered - and set the pattern for banking today. 29
John Steinbeck. His 1996 biography by Catherine Reef 29
Secrets of the Temple - How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. Paperback. 29
The roots of our self-sustaining life style: Bishop Hill Story 29
Roots of wisdom and protest of neo slavery 33
Farmers with Secret Tunnels harvest 100 acres per day by hand. 34
Index 36
Greed and Seed. Please take Heed.
1.In times of low corn prices we should be growing our own seed but lies of Pioneer and other corporate ficta thwart farmers in their effort to survive - and the Universities don't expose the lies!
1.The Illinois High-Oil selection program was used to obtain high oil corn - - and Illinois farmer should reap the benefits. Instead, Dupont is stepping in to take the profit out of farming - and adding insult to injury by using our own tax dollars against us!
1.We could just as readily have heirloom seeds that produce high oil corn. The Illinois High-Oil selection program provided the genetic coding for high oil. Why isn't the University of Illinois helping us Illinois farmers with this? And what about the cooperative extension service? Are they willfully promoting the lies - or are they simply ignorant?
1.Monsanto and Dupont and their newly acquired fat corporate ficta Dekalb and Pioneer have available 3 methods to make sure that we don't use our crop for next year's seed. It is as bad as if Deere refused to sell tractors and only rented them to us. The 3 methods are: #1 selling us hybrid instead of heirloom seeds; #2 selling us male sterile and female sterile seeds; #3 the terminator gene which renders all seeds sterile - even ones in adjoining fields.
The problem is greed and oppression. Humans have created corporations and now take a back seat to them. We must rise up and deal with the problem - but first we must know the problem. The problem is not technical but political, legal, and sociological.
Seed corporations have always used their fullest arsenal of dastardly tricks to tap the profit off of farming. There are 3 main tools in their seed arsenal as follows, in order of appearance:
#1 trick: Mendelian distribution in the post F1 generation. In the early 1900's (or earlier maybe) corporate ficta sold F1 generation seeds to farmers knowing that the whore universities would provide the warning to farmers that 25% of the progeny of an F1 generation will manifest a recessive trait according the basic laws of genetics discovered by Monk Gregor Mendel in his study of peas. Farmers never thought to demand laws to set standards that would reject this defective corn.
#2 trick: Now with high oil corn starting, as I recall in the winder of 1996/97 Monsanto sold corn that contained pink male sterile seeds and blue female crippled seed. The pink seed - the vast majority is indeed sterile - but Monsanto ran a decoy and deceived the farmers by a flurry of publicity saying that they were not using the terminator gene. Farmers and the kindly-but-stupid seed dealers didn't know and didn't care. As usual, they can see only as distant as the financing for next spring's crop;
#3 trick: The terminator gene. I don't know why the Department of Agriculture owns the patent. Either they helped the evil corporate ficta to develop it - or they paid a ransom to Monsanto to save the world from it. Either way, they could have done it legally with the stroke of a pen instead of paying ransom.
Even though Monsanto claims to have refrained from using the terminator gene, in fact Monsanto (by their previous name, Pioneer) has been selling sterile corn since 1996. I harvested sterile corn in 1997 and 1998.
Monsanto sells 2 kinds of seeds to farmers; the red seeds produce plants that have no pollen; the blue seeds produce plant that have nubbins for ears. The red seed planted alone would theoretically produce a cob with no kernels. The blue would produce a cob with few kernels. Both seed lines have been intentionally sabotaged by Monsanto to prevent their use by farmers in the next generation.
Since as far as I can remember, farmers have meekly accepted hybrid corn perhaps not knowing that with legislation and legal action they could demand heirloom quality seeds. In the boom 70's they were happy to buy the best seed because they were getting a good price for each marginal increment in money spent on seed. When corn was $3.75 per bushel and seed cost $75 per bushel, the ratio of costs was 20. Now corn is $1.50 and seed costs $110. The ratio is 73, an increase of 370%.
And don't deceive yourself by thinking that the cost of producing seed is substantially higher than producing corn for feed. The same farmers use the same technology to produce seeds - except that there is the additional step of detassling some corn - and the drying must be done carefully - and admittedly there are other steps. I worked on a seed corn farm and have observed others in operation near my home. At best the cost of seed corn might fairly be twice to 3 times the cost of commercial corn - - not 73 times the cost of normal corn.
In times of low grain prices, the transition step is to reduce seed cost. After land acquisition cost, seed is the single highest cost of farming per acre at $35 per acre. Farmers have long held back part of their soybean crop in years of low prices in order to use it for seed in the spring. But for the treachery of seed corn producers pretending to be our friends, we would have stable homozygous corn suitable for use as seed.
Genesis of this Essay.
Diary notes: 25 June 2000 Sunday. 3 pm Morning thoughts. Again my mind turns to the problem of sterile seeds because nobody in my home town is farsighted enough to see the problem.
With Age and Experience comes the wisdom to recognize badness even when disguised and promoted.
Examples:
Example #1: Seed corn producers focus their effort on producing sterile seeds so that we can only get our seeds from them. Greed precludes production of a natural viable seed - because we could use the crop for seeds the next year.
Example #2: The new California law that permits a district attorney to simply send your name to all the licensing boards and take all your state licenses for alleged failure to pay child support - whether the allegation is true or not.
Example #3: In my home town Transco uses an overpriced computer program marketed in a predatory manner. It uses a "sentinel key" plugged into the back of the computer to prevent use of the program on another computer. This sentinel key is absent in healthy society. I view it as I would a vulture - a sign of decay - in this case a symptom of the brain drain.
Example #4: Music industry. Mp3 uproar. MP3 and Napster are a threat to corporate ficta who has been screwing us (both the buyers of music - and those who would like to have their music produced) for years with overpriced music - while at the same time screwing the musicians.
Example #5: The entire intellectual property area is greedy corporate ficta in action - descendants of the gypsies, jews, scribes, and pharisees - plying their trades of deception and predation. The seed companies want to do what the music industry has done - take the money away from those who produce - and put it in the hands of the people at the top. In pursuit of that effort Seed Companies in 1970 talked Congress into passing the plant protection act to prevent you from growing your own seeds - but Congress gave you an exception - and furthermore, seed corn companies are not protected because their seeds are not uniform nor stable genetically speaking - and arguably, those are required traits for protection, and the seed companies have now proven it because although they ask you to agree to their contract printed on the bag to permit them to put both feet in the trough, they really don't even trust you that far. For years they have been designing seed to be sterile - and that is just another example of the stealthy encroachment of corporate ficta who are older and more treacherous then we will ever live to be.
But none of the readily apparent examples of oppression by corporate ficta hits as close to home as the sterile seed situation, and the shortsightedness and ignorance of farmers about sterile seeds. I'll explain:
In time of low corn prices we should be growing our own seed!
But even Walter Seed company of Grand Ridge (one of the last local seed producers) is now in the hands of Cargill - enemy of the farmers - but pretending to be our friend by buying Orion Samuelson and other corporate media whores - shills of corporate ficta. Corporate Ficta means "Corporate Fictions" (including governments and municipalities) and the significance is that since the age of the robber barons beginning during he civil war and continuing into the present the corporation has been an instrument of oppression to deny rights to humans and give more rights to perpetually enduring corporations which give the rich a dozen words with Congress for every word from non-rich - but I digress. We pay $38 per acre for seed. At a price of $2.50 per bushel, we could tolerate a yield loss of 14 bushels per acre - about 10% to 15% loss - and still make the same amount of money if we grew our own seeds - and we would eliminate sterile seeds.
Greed and Seed
In the past few years, some farmers have grown high oil corn which yields 7% oil instead of the normal 6%. Although the oil content is increased by 16%, the farmer receives at most 30 cents per bushel more - which is 16% of $1.80 - which should tell us what corporate ficta thinks corn prices should be. Monsanto purchased Dekalb. Dupont purchased Pioneer. As I was planting corn in 1998 I asked my brother Greg why a small percentage of the seeds in the high oil corn were blue instead of the normal pink. His answer was that the blue seeds produce the male plants - - the pollinators - which contain the high oil traits which in turn are spread to the female plants. That would be the normal efficient way of improving the quality of seeds - - - but my brother Greg is typical of the fat dumb farmer in Allen township who is pissing away the ranch and does not even know it. In fact the seed corn dealers don't even know what the deal is!! When I asked them about the seeds, the told me the corporate lie also!
In fact, the blue seeds have only one purpose: To ensure that the corn produced will be sterile - so we are dependent on corporate ficta!!
I thought about this while I was planting corn (something I would never have been permitted to do by my Dad and Greg - - due to their insecurity.) Jerry and I were on the 2nd crew in spring 1999. We used Dad's 6 row planter - - and planted just fine. I thought that Jerry would plant while I tilled - but Jerry told me then - in the spring of 1999 - to get on the tractor and plant - - or I may never get the chance again - and besides, Jerry likes to drive the bigger tillage tractor.
I will explain by stepping back in time until 1999 - when I figured this out. I must confess that I was mistaken about the embryo and he rest of the kernal. I thought mistakenly that high oil in the corn harvest of 1999 cannot be caused by the pollen that falls in 1999. I mistakenly thought that that the kernel is the part of the female part of the flower. I mistakenly thought that the oil content of the kernel is a characteristic of female zygote, the ovule. Now I have been informed that the kernel is a produce of fertilization and that indeed the desirable oil and other desirable nutrients (presumably lysine - although I am guessing on that) com from the embryo. I have known since childhood that the tip contains the heart of the seed - but I did not realize that this year's most desirable nutrients come from that tuny embryo which will be next year's plant.
Emerson Hafziger from the University of Illinois explained to me that the kernel is not the ovule. The ovule is on the cob and will become the kernel but only after the double fertilization. One fertilization produces the embryo that lives in the pointy tip of the kernel. The other fertilization produces the endosperm with is the bulk of the kernel. Therefore indeed the content of the kernel harvested in October 1999 is determined by the pollen shed in summer 1999.
Another example: The shape of a flower in 1999 does not depend on the pollen that falls on it in 1999. (Retrospect: the kernel, the seed, is not the flower.) The 1999 pollen will only affect the shape or color of the next generation. (Retrospect: the kernel is indeed the next generation: proof: no pollen, no kernel.) It's kinda simple when you think about it - and it becomes even clearer if you consider flowering perennials. The perennial flower remains unaffected by stray pollen - although the stray pollen would affect the genetic material in the seeds. (Retrospect: and it would affect the shape and content of the seeds because the fertilization input genetic content from the pollen into construction of the endosperm which is the bulk of the seed - at least in corn.)
Same with peppers. You don't need to worry about growing all your peppers together - - unless you are planning to save the seeds. Then you must isolate the peppers by placing bug proof cages over the plants are flowering time to assure that the plants self-pollinate. Otherwise your purple peppers won't produce the correct seeds for purple peppers. Incidentally, we know from reading Horticulture magazine the direction that the purple peppers to move as they regress. Peppers regress to a hotter pepper, as I recall. Bell Peppers are a result of hybridization. Purple peppers are likely the result of even more hybridization - and likely you would get green peppers in the succeeding generation if you grew this year's purple peppers next to green peppers- - and likely you would get hot small peppers in the succeeding generation if you planted this years purple peppers next to hot peppers. But some would remain purple due to self pollenization - - but nobody wants purple pepper seeds that "sometimes" produce purple peppers.
Glossary - Remedial Genetics and Botany for Farmers about to go broke from their own failure to remember how their grandfather's fathers selected corn seed. Angiosperm. Any member (including corn, oaks, roses, and daisies) of a class of vascular plants having ovules and seeds enclosed in an ovary, forming the embryo and endosperm by double fertilization and typically having each flower surrounded by a perianth composed of two sets of floral envelopes comprising the calyx and corolla.
Anther The part of a stamen that produces and contains pollen as is usually borne on a stalk. The tassel.
Bull rows. Rows of corn whose pollen falls on adjacent rows who plants have been castrated (detassled) by girls who grow up to be respected and feared.
Carpel (1835 word) - fused carpels is an ear of corn. A carpel is one of the ovule-bearing structures in an angiosperm that constitutes the innermost whorl of a flower. The innermost whorl of the corn is the ear, or course.
Corn silk. Seductive silky corn hair designed to hold onto the male reproductive microspores - - and in that way works much like human hair.
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid - and I did not have too look it up either. The genetic instructions for the growth of living things. Monsanto has, through destructive devolution modified the DNA to ensure that their high oil seeds are sterile so that farmers in India and the USA - and soon China, will be a captive market for Monsanto's corn - and so that farmers can't grow their own seeds. I saw an excellent drawing of how DNA works in the book called Viruses by Scientific American Presscirca 1991. Assembly via DNA is kinda like a high school dance. Selective selection from a random assortment of parts. The chain of DNA splits apart into 2 and then randomly picks up the chemical that fits perfectly onto the vacancy - but due to the limited universe of choices (like a high school with only 8 kids - 4 sets of twins) the resulting matching spiral is identical to the original one - unless a mutation occurs (like a tornado sweeping away one of the 8 kids at the dance and sweeping in a new kid - like maybe Dorothy).
Dominant trait Example: brown eyes. See more at Recessive trait
Embryo A tiny corn plant contained in the pointy tip of every kernel of corn. The young sporophyte of a seed plant usually comprising a rudimentary plant with plumule, radicle, and cotyledons. The seed producers say that the increase in oil in high oil corn comes from a bigger embryo at harvest time which is when the embryo begins dormancy. On a certain day of the year every autumn you can first notice the "black layer" between the kernel and the cob indicating that the kernel is no longer receiving nutrients from the plant. A bigger embryo comes from longer growing season - and theIllinois high-oil selection program - not from any Monsanto or Dekalb magic - yet they want to swoop down and take $35 from every acre of corn that you grow forever - just because they can!
Endosperm - 1850. A nutritive tissue in seed plants formed within the embryo sac. The seed corporations say that high oil content comes from a larger embryo. Thus the endosperm would seem to be larger in high oil corn compared to normal corn - and the difference arises from a longer growth season and the Illinois high-oil selection program - which may have been selecting simply forlong season corn, inadvertently or not - or fast growing embryo.
Female plant When we produce high oil corn, the pink kernels produce the female plant. Technically it is different than a true natural female plant such as the female plant that produces those potent buds in marijuana which is something you kids will learn about when you grow older - but your Dad plants it in the bean field - way out in the middle - but hey, you didn't hear it from me. Incidentally, marijuana can be used to make paper and clothes 3 times more efficient than the way we do it now - and it would save the cutting of our great natural old growth forests - but it would take business from corporate ficta and put it back into the hands of farmers and make us more self sufficient - and expand our list of marketable products beyond the 2 products that we have now.
F1 generation. (No relation to generation x) The generation of corn that we plant in the field. Its progeny(2)are subject to Mendel's rules and will not be uniform in phenotype. Significance: The F1 generations at the heart of Mendel's paradox which is this: If the parents have identical genetic coding for a trait, how can that trait possibly be different from the parent? The F1 generationproduces children according to Mendelian application, that is to say, 3 brown eyed kids for every blue eyed one if you start with each parent having a heterozygous(one brown, one blue is heterozygous) genes for brown eyes. Application: The corporate lie is that Mendelian distribution is the boogeyman to blame for not being able to be free from the curse of Mendelian distribution, but the seed companies could easily sell us heirloom quality seed - that is, homozygous seeds. I asked my brother why we have blue kernels. I asked the seed companies by email. They did not respond. I asked seed dealers. None of them knew but they all told me the corporate lie; that it was necessary for high oil corn. This is a lie. In truth, it is part of the continuing effort for 50 years to corner the market on seeds and keep farmers captive as their buyers. For more information, use your web browser or your dictionary or encyclopedia for the words "F1 generation, genetics, Mendel, homozygous ". F1 generation is not in most dictionaries. I found the following website on the first try. I searched for "F1 generation genetics." I went to this website first and it was perfect:
http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~weston/Preeti10.html
Gametophyte. an 1889 word. It's the male thing that travels to ovary in the cob of corn. The individual that bears sex organs - as distinguished from sporophyte. Some plants reproduce sexually. Corn does. Sexual reproduction permits introduction of new (and hopefully improved) traits more quickly. Mushrooms, by comparison produce asexually, I am guessing.
Genotype. Look it up. Genotype is genetic coding - as distinguished from phenotype which is the eye color of other manifestation of the dominant over the recessive genes in the genotype. See Phenotype. The genotype is not visible. The phenotype of many traits is visible. The genotype could, in earlier days, only be determined by backward logical extrapolation or by knowing the genealogy of the parents.
Heterosis. Hybrid vigor. See Hybrid vigor.
Heterosporous. Seed plants are heterosporous.
Heterospory - 1898. The production of moth microspores (in pollen?) and megaspores (as in seed plants and some ferns).
Hybrid A plant whose genetic material comes from 2 sources. In other words, the opposite of an heirloom. The significance is that the hybrid exhibits "hybrid vigor" which means that generally the stronger traits are dominant - but also, due to Mendel's rules, the F1 generation may have 25% different than the remaining 75%.
Hybrid vigor - technical name: heterosis. A natural phenomenon whereby the product of hybridization is usually better than either of the parents. Palaschak's theory of heterosis: I have thought about this paradox - and after 30 years I have this answer. Hybrid vigor only happens when starting with a normal untampered universe. Genetic traits doesn't keep getting better progressively simply by crossing with anybody. Hey, just look around you. The explanation is similar to understanding why all the waves coming to shore are going in the same direction. Well, duh, the ones moving in another direction went to another shore. Similarly, in two families of pigs, people, or corn, both families evolved by natural selection although some families of corn in a different climate, for example, may not have severely tested certain traits - and therefore have not improved. Stressing causes improvement. In the words of Conan the Barbarian: "whatever does not kill you makes you stronger" - but natural selection only works when it kills; it kills the weak before they reproduce. When you combine the two random banks of genetic material, you obtain the statistical benefit of years of natural selection pertaining to those traits that your own family did not test for, such as ability to withstand a cold winter (which may be a proxy for intelligence - and the underlying explanation for the race problem: People in warm climates have never needed the intelligence to survive a cold winter - and therefore the genes for stupidity are with them today. My proof: How many inventions came from Africa or the middle east, or tropical America, or Mexico.)
Hybridization The process of introducing new traits into a plant (or animal) by using pollen from a new different variety, or source. Hybridization is easier with corn because the pollen producer on the corn stalk is 2 feet or more distant from the egg - and therefore self-pollenization can easily be thwarted.
Homozygous. A 1902 word. Adj. Having the two genes at corresponding places identical for that particular trains such as male sterility, high oil content, female sterility, etc. Example: In high oil corn the blue seeds likely are homozygous regarding female sterility and male fertility. Conversely, the pink seeds are homozygous regarding the male sterile trait and the female fertile trait. Incidentally, it is like baby colors, pink is female and blue is male. The F1 generation that we harvest will likely distribute these traits in Mendelian distribution. MM Mn nM mm(3). A seed company could attack many parts of the plants to produce sterility - and therefore they could likely cause sterility to be dominant or recessive - whichever they choose. They would choose dominant to ensure that the F1 generation is incapable of producing seeds. Let's look at that carefully. The F1 is what you harvest. Of course it will grow - - but I predict that there will be many missing ears and defective pollen and in the fall when the ears arrive, you will find no kernels. I did this research inadvertently when I was a child. I planted some corn from the crib. I planted it near my old sand box under the apple tree between the cob house and the out house. Wow, I feel old now. In the fall, when I would be harvesting, I discovered that the corn had what I called "pop" corn ears - because some kernels popped up - but most failed to appear. That picture stayed with me all these years. My Dad said that perhaps the pollen was ineffective because I had only 3 or 4 stalks of corn in this patch - and maybe he was right. Let's look a little deeper. Anybody who drives around LaSalle or Grundy county will find seed corn being grown. In 1996 (and maybe 97 98 99 and 00) seed corn was grown on Gardner road not far from the Lowery dairy farm on the north side of the road. You can see the bull rows and the female rows - which are detassled by kids every year. If the seed companies wanted to prevent their corn from being used as seed, then they could use female sterile corn in the bull rows - and maybe they do - that is their practice with the high oil seeds that they sell to you; the blue seeds are the female sterile bull row. If they could make that gene dominant, then the F1 generation would be female sterile and produce ears with no kernels - - like the corn that grew for me when I was a child. I should have alerted my neighbors to this oncoming catastrophe then, but I was a child then and I did the things of a child; Now I am an adult and I have a duty to speak up - which is what I am doing now. Significance: Now that I have observed complex problems in society I differentiate between those that cannot be solved with the stroke of a pen - such as disease, bodily injury, drought, etc; and those that can be solved with the stroke of a pen - such as the problem that I observed as a child: intentional design of sterile seeds for purposes of greed!! Our government wants to help the farmers but they are whores to Agribusiness. Farm Bureau is not your friend either! And neither are your educational institutions to be believed blindly! They are all beholding to corporate ficta. Otherwise you would already know the truth: Corporate ficta are selling you sterile seed so that you cannot grow your own seeds!
Application: In production of high oil corn, we actually do the last step of cross breeding in the field - which permits us to have an F1 generation that has both high oil that we desire, and the sterility that Monsanto desires to prevent us from independence and control of our finances! This last step is hooey; the seed corn companies could have given us homozygous fertile seeds - heirloom quality seeds - or at least warned us.
Male plant. The blue kernels produce the male plant in high oil corn - that's why they are blue. Blue is the color for male babies. Duh.
Megasporangium. A sporagnium that develops only megaspores.
Megaspore. A spore in heterosporous plants that gives rise to female gametophytes and is generally larger than a microspore.
Mendel's rules. Look it up. Essentially is says that two brown eyed people can have a blue eyed baby - and it is because a brown eyed person may carry a recessive gene for blue eyes which will manifest itself in a blue eyed baby if this baby inherits a blue gene from the Mom. Gregor Mendel was a monk who experimented with peas to observe the appearance of wrinkles skin and other traits and invented genetics. It just shows what you can do if you get some time to concentrate. Hint: He had no children and no job and no social life. Mendel, that is. I'm not talking about me.
Microspore What travels to the end of the silk. Then what happens? How does the information get to the ovary. Does something travel down the silk? Or does the stork bring it?
Nucellus - 1882 - Latin: small nut. Kernel. The central and chief part of a plant ovule that encloses the female gametophyte.
Ovary. In corn the ovary is located in what will be the cob. There is an ovary for every kernel. I think so. The silk is the means by which the male microspore from the pollen travels down to where will be the kernel and into the ovary. See the dictionary under "flower" for a picture of the location of the ovary in more normal plants than corn.
Ovule. An outgrowth of the ovary in a seed plant that is a megasporangium and encloses an embryo sacwithin a nucellus (which is a fancy name for a kernel).
Phenotype. The physical manifestation of the genotype. The product of the DNA when it grows into an actual plant or person. The phenotypes may look the same but have different genotypes. The one brown eyed person may have 2 brown eye genes while the other may have a brown gene and a blue gene. They have the same phenotype (as manifest in their appearance - their brown eye color) (limited to that one trait) resulting from different genotypes.
Pistil A single carpel or group of fused carpels (the ear of corn) usually differentiated into an ovary, style, and stigma.
Pollen grain. An 1835 word. The first settlers came to Allen township in 1850. They were corn farmers - probably with this word on the tips of their tongues. It was probably the cool thing to say back then . . .before the word "homozygous" had been invented. One of the granular microspores that occur in pollen and give rise to the male gametophyte of a seed plant. Pollen is produced in corn at the tassels at the top of the stalk. Corn pollen is transported to the silk by gravity and wind. By comparison, most common plants self pollinate without need for wind because the pollen is within millimeters of the pollen receiver. The pollen is absent in some corporate ficta produced corn due to their greed. They sell us crippled corn so that we cannot grow our own seed. They compound this with the lie that the blue pollinator seeds give us the high oil trait. Ha! They give us sterility!
Recessive trait Example: blue eyes, male sterility, or male insterility in corn. Seems that you could design it either to be recessive or dominant - and our enemies, Monsanto and Dupont, have chosen to make it dominant - but that is must my conjecture. Go ahead, make my day. Prove me wrong.
Sporophyte The individual or generation of a plant exhibiting alternation of generations that bears asexual spores. Compare and contrast to gametophyte.
Stamen Look it up your self, fer crisesake! It's in the dictionary. Okay, it is the pollen producing male organ of a flower. It consists of an anther and a filament, the filament being the stalk that bears the anther. Hmm, sound like the filament is the 2 feet of stalk holding the tassel above the ear.
Stigma The female organ at the end of the style (corn silk) to which the pollen attaches. The stigma is more obvious on flowers more normal than corn.
Style. A filiform (shaped like a filament - like silk in the case of corn) prolongation of a plant ovary bearing stigma at its apex. In corn, that would be the silk coming from the ovary in the cob (which is a group of fused carpels) and reaching out through the husks to catch the pollen - so the silk must be the stigma and the style together with a minimized stigma.
Tassel Okay, technically the scientific generalized botanical name is "anther". A tassel is the anther on corn. See anther, above.
A-maize-ing Corn Facts
Mike Rankin
Crops and Soils Agent - Fond du Lac County
University of Wisconsin - Extension
From 500 to 1000 spikelets form on each tassel (the male flower) with each spikelet containing two florets. Each floret contains three anthers from which pollen is released.
Two to five million pollen grains are released per plant.
It takes about a week for an individual plant to shed all of its pollen with the greatest volume of pollen being released on the second or third day.
If anthers become wet, pollen shed is temporarily shutdown.
The majority of pollen shed occurs in the morning when temperatures are moderate.
Each corn plant has the potential to form from six to ten ears, although only one or two actually develop.
Each ear shoot (the female flower) has the potential to develop about 1000 kernels (called ovules in the developmental stage) of corn. However, only 400 to 600 actually form on typical Wisconsin hybrids.
A silk elongates from each ovule (potential kernel) site.
A pollen grain must land on an individual silk if fertilization of the ovule is to occur.
A pollen grain can land anywhere on the length of the silk. Once this happens, a pollen tube begins to grow inside the silk and fertilization of the ovule takes place within 24 hours.
Silks are only receptive to pollen for about ten days after emergence from the husk.
Some basic corn facts - Detassling and the reason we do it
Kids in Illinois detassle corn every year. Corn is ideal for hybridization because the pollen producer, the tassel, is some 2 or more feet above the female part, the ear, which contains the ovaries. Therefore you can put a bag over the ear to keep out stray pollen and then pollinate the ear with pollen from a new variety - which you would grow in the bull row - or else you could transport pollen by hand from a more distant plant. The young ear of corn produces silk while the tassel, on the top simultaneously drops pollen. Each pollen contains male microspores. This male genetic information travels down the silk to meet the female genetic coded materia located in the fused carpels known as the ear. The result is double fertilization (one fertilization producing the embryo and the other producing the endosperm) which is unique to seed plants. Each silk goes to one kernel, I think. The embryo resides in the pointy end of a kernel of corn. Oh, now I remember: we did experiments with corn embryos in "Weed and Seeds" class at the University of Illinois. The embryo stays viable for years even through a freezing cold dry winter.
Every kids who detassels corn knows that there are bull rows that they do not detassle. The pollen, containing male microspores, from the bull rows falls onto the silk on the ears of the detassled corn. In that manner we hybridize the corn by introducing new traits by using pollen from a different variety of corn.
By comparison, soybeans (and almost all other plants with which we are familiar) have the normal flower that you can find drawn in the dictionary with the stamen (which produces pollen - which contains male microspores) located close to the stigma which receives the pollen and is connected (via its stem called the pistil or silk in the case of corn) to the ovary which produces the female genetic coding. The stigma sits on a stem called the pistil.
Corn has an unusually long pistil and/or stigma called the silk. Whereas most flowers have maybe 5 or 6 pistils, corn has many, one for each kernel. I am guessing that corn has an ovary for each kernel. Corn always has an even number of rows of kernels, typically 14, 16, or 18. Each row has about 25 to 35 kernels. Therefore each ear of corn has approximately 360 kernels - and a stalk may have 2 ears in a good year. By comparison each bean stalk has approximately 20 to 30 pods containing 1 to 3 beans - or approximately 40 beans.
The flower parts are so basic that they are in the dictionary. Just look up flower, stigma, pistil, ovary, and stamen.
Okay, so if they don't give us high oil, then what do da blue seeds do?
(Retrospect, the blue kernels do indeed give us high oil; I was wrong about that. However, we could easily develop homozygous high oil corn.)
What interest does the greedy Corporate Seed Company have in the genetic makeup of a the tiny
germ at the tip of a kernel that will be ground or otherwise used for feed or food?
Keep in mind that the oil content of this corn has been determined by the DNA in the pointy tip of the kernel that you bought from the seed company at $120 per bushel. Keep in mind that corn prices today on 4 August 2000 are $1.50 per bushel. You spend $40 to buy that 1/ 3 bushel of seeds to plant that acre of corn. It is the single highest expense per acre. You will receive 50 cents for 1/ 3 bushel of your corn - yet you pay $40 for a bushel of the child of that corn - - which, under ordinary laws of biology should have the same genetic make-up - - but corporate ficta tampers with the laws of biology - not so much to give you high oil as to ensure that your crop is sterile! The profit per acre on corn can range from zero to maybe $80. Duh, why not save $39.50 and thereby double your average profit by growing your own seeds - like you do with soybeans - like self-sustaining farmers have done for years! The yield will be lower, you say? Well even if your yield is down 26 bushels per acre (which would be a 20% loss on 120 bushels per acre) you still are money ahead. Back to the question: What interest can the seed company have in the genetic makeup of the germ in the tip of that kernel that you harvest and could sell at $1.50? Answer: Their only interest is to make sure that you don't use it to grow next year's crop and stop buying their $120 seed corn!!! You would be better off buying crack cocaine!! These seed companies are treacherous.
Let's take a look at the botanical genetics involved.
To understand the blue seeds, let's consider the pink seeds first. Why don't we need to detassle the "female" corn that sprouts from the red seeds in the high oil seed bag? Answer: Because the pink seeds produce sterile tassels and pollen, fer crisesake!! Otherwise the blue seeds would not be able to compete because they would be outnumbered in the pollen department.
Query - could we substitute our own pollinator seeds eliminate sterility?
Hmm. If we could take out all of the blue pollinator seed and substitute more generic seed - like a non-high oil corn then the next generation would likely have high oil seeds and tassels that work! I think that we can prove that they would not be high oil with tassels that don't work. I think that the sterile tassels is a recessive gene - and that is why they give us the pollinators! The pollinator seeds (and the pink female kernels too) each have 2 recessive genes - and that is why Pioneer adds the pollinator seeds - because obviously the pink cannot pollinate themselves because they are double recessive. So they need to be pollinated. If we used our own pollinator seeds from non-sterile corn of any variety, then we would be adding the genetic capability to be non-sterile.
I conclude that if we took out all the blue sterile pollinators and inserted an equal number of normal corn seeds (in other words "heirloom" (non-hybrid) - or even stabilized (not F-1 generation) hybrid non-sterile seeds) then we could convert the entire crop to non-sterile, fertile seeds - and use that seed for the next years crop - and case law says that we could use those seeds legally - and theoretically we could even sell the next generation because we bred them ourselves!!!!! (As distinguished from next generation self-pollinated hybrid soybeans which were bred by the vendor because we did not change the genetic make up. The soybean self-pollinated. By comparison, we have chosen the pollinator plants in my corn example for producing our own high oil corn.)
If I were farming I would be testing this theory; If the universities worked for us, they would save
us the trouble. If the magazines wrote for us, we would already know. If Orion Samuelson were on our side (instead of being paid by our enemies, Pioneer and Dekalb) he would have told us.
But I don't find any local farmers doing any work on testing corn seeds or growing their own like they do with soybeans.
Hey you, Mr. Farmer, those blue pollinator kernels are not really magic beans! Just the opposite: they make your corn sterile! Just a thought here: Hmm, if a seed cannot by itself produce a crop, then is it even rightfully called a seed? Pioneer, Dekalb and Wyffels lie to you.
If you crashed a plane on a desert island and you were wearing your blue jeans that you wore while shoveling the beans out of the bin, and if you had one bean that went through the wash, you could grown a bean plant! And if you had in your other pocket a pink high oil seed - - You could not grow corn. Duh. That's the difference. Mike, the seeds are sterile!! By definition, a seed does not need another seed to reproduce, fer crisesake! Cows need 2 cows to reproduce. (Whoa, we have turned it all around. Now the cow producers eliminated the bull via artificial insemination - and the seed producers at the same time have introduced the need for a "bull" seed. Life is weird sometimes.)
The pollen does indeed influence the traits of the kernel - but heterozygous reproduction is not essential for high oil content! You already paid for the research when you bought the Illinois high-oil selection program; Now Monsanto and Dupont are stealing the results from you.
Lawyer talk: You do indeed need pollen that is genetically coded for high oil to breed with the ears that are genetically coded for high oil - but you would already have that with a normal self-pollinating long season corn - which was developed with your tax dollars. Dekalb, Pioneer, and Wyffels refuse to sell you what you already paid for! You paid for the research. Now, instead of selling you some nice seeds that you could use to produce our own seed, they are giving you a 21st century magic bean story.
I learned that the pollen does indeed have the capability to influence the traits of the embryo and endosperm within the kernel - but that does not justify or explain the use of sterile plants. Both the male and the female sterile corn seeds that Pioneer sells us are coded for high oil - thanks to Illinois taxes paid by farmers to permit Pioneer to benefit from the Illinois high-oil selection program and attempt to restrain trade and inhibit seed independence. The pollen (the male gamete) and the female gamete (located in the fused carpel that we call an ear of corn) split DNA and reform following Mendel's genetic rules and produce the embryo and endosperm inside the nucellus (kernel). But this all happens with homozygous or heirloom quality self-pollinated seeds! We don't need two kinds of sterile seeds to do that. The sterility is an instrument of oppression - and you should be outraged that Pioneer and Dekalb and Wyffels are using your tax dollars against you. And where are your legislators. They don't even know that the kernels are sterile!
Remedial Genetics - Gregor Mendel - a Monk and his peas. The Dekalb Big Lie: The Pollen gives you high oil. Ha!
Remember that a recessive trait - such as blue eyes - will not appear unless the recessive gene from each parent is given to the child. Otherwise the dominant (brown eyes) gene will determine the eye color.
This scandalous example may help you remember: If two blue-eyed blonde parents produce a brown eyed child, then somebody cheated, because both of the parents, being both blue-eyed, had 2 blue-eye genes - and therefore the child could not have received a brown eye gene from either parent - and if the eyes of the child are brown, then the child must have received a brown gene from somebody.
However, in many traits, the choices are not brown or blue - but shades of grey. This is the case with high oil. Therefore, if you were to cross pollinate with non-high-oil, the result would be something less than high oil. But we would never reach that issue except that we must search for a reason for the pollinator seeds; the conclusion is inescapable: they are there to keep you addicted! You could be growing your own seeds from their stock! (You would need to investigate to see if the sterility can be easily undone - and it likely can be undone.)
Query: Is this policy of sterile seeds the product of Monsanto and Dupont?
Mike at the Farmer's Elevator told me that Monsanto did a survey to test the popularity of sterile seeds - and the result is that farmer's don't like the idea- - so Monsanto disguised the sterility!
Whether it came from Dekalb or from the new owners, it is the product of corporate ficta and their mentality which is divergent from the mentality that contributed to the stable, self-sustaining life style that I enjoyed as a child in Allen township. The seed companies want us to be dependent on them for seed. Ordinarily in times of low prices we would hold back a portion of the crop and use if for seed, as we do now with soybeans when bean prices are low.
A study of history tells us that corporate ficta has already entrapped India by making them dependent on corporate ficta for seed.
The WTO wants us to trade with China so that they can expand their shortsighted greedy policies on China and make their agriculture capital intensive and their seeds sterile. Corporate ficta does not car that we would be buying products from china made by slave labor and the labor of young slave children. In fact corporate ficta wishes that we could return to slavery here in the U.S. - and in fact the neo-slavery in America is the 2nd class status of humans in comparison to corporations. Farmers and I know that in every industry we have become more efficient. Well then why do we continue to work 40 hours per week when we ought to be working only 4 to 10 hours per week based on the increased efficiency? Answer: Corporate ficta has skimmed off the profit. Why have we seen so few technological advances since 1942 (when corporate ficta swooped down and scooped up Tesla's writings (Tesla planned to distribute free electricity to everybody) after Tesla died in 1942)? Answer: The government hides progress using the excuse that we must keep secrets from the enemy. The Russian people were not our enemy. They are a lot like us. I am ¼ Russian. In fact history shows that governments and corporate ficta including the catholic church have always organized war and used people as pawns in the battle between the competing corporate ficta.
Research Results from the Internet. Basic Facts about High Oil Corn.
From Ohio State University Website
Research done Sunday, August 6, 2000. 6:35 AM
HIGH-OIL corn contains approximately 7 to 8 percent oil. This is a 2 to 3 percent increase over normal
corn. Additionally, protein quality and quantity are increased somewhat in high-oil corn. This is because
the germ size is larger and it contains protein of higher quality than the endosperm. The high-oil trait is
controlled by many genes and is derived from the Illinois High-Oil selection program(4). Source:
Web site of Ohio State University Extension
Department of Horticulture and Crop Science
2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1044
If cross pollination occurs, the cross-pollinated ears of the waxy, high-amylose and high-lysine hybrids will produce normal seed and the seed of the high-oil hybrid will have an oil percentage intermediate between the normal and high-oil hybrid. Corn grown under contract is usually checked for possible contamination with field corn. To avoid cross pollination, specialty hybrids should be grown in an isolated field or the grain from the border six to ten rows should be harvested separately from the rest of the field. Additionally, these specialty hybrids should be grown following crops other than corn to avoid volunteer corn.
Limited data do indicate that high-oil type hybrids containing 7 to 8 percent oil may be produced with little or no sacrifice in yield.
Feeding trials with high-oil corn indicate improved feed efficiency and rate of gain. This is expected since oil contains more energy per pound than starch.
Prepared by:
Peter Thomison
Extension Agronomist
From University of Illinois Website
About 5,000 acres of high oleic high oil corn are currently being grown under contract with Optimum Grains for the first time in Illinois. All of the high oleic corn acres are grown with Dupont's TOPCROSS technology, which involves planting seed of a high oil pollinator mixed with seed of a male-sterile hybrid. High oil corn blends grown with the TOPCROSS system often produce yields comparable to the grain parent, depending upon the growing conditions. Due to higher grain energy content, though, yields of HOTC have sometimes been lower than those of normal corn, especially when yields are limited by the total amount of energy available from photosynthesis. Because this is a first-year program, high oleic high oil corn yields remain to be seen.
Developed by the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Funded by the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research
From Wyffels Website
Wyffels Hybrids is a regional agricultural seed company providing elite corn hybrids, high oil corn
seed blends, and premium alfalfas to farmers of the U.S. midwest.
740 East Henry Street • PO Box 246 • Atkinson, IL 61235-0246
309-936-7833 or 800-369-7833 • (fax) 309-936-7930
Administration - wadmin@wyffels.com
Production - wproduction@wyffels.com
Research - wresearch@wyffels.com
Sales and Marketing - wsales@wyffels.com
Inquiry to Wyffels by email
I sent this email to Wyffels on 5 August Sunday morning: How can you know what the price differential will be for high oil corn? Isn't this differential unilaterally determined by Cargill?
Optimum®, TopCross® and TC Blend®
are registered trademarks of Optimum Quality Grains, L.L.C.
From Dupont Website. They own 100% of Pioneer since 1 Oct 1999.
From their website: Oct 1 1999. Dupont completes its purchase of all of Pioneer stock and deceptively calls is a merger. Cost: $7.7 billion for 80%. That means 100% is worth about $10 billion.
From Dupont (Pioneer) website:
The generally suggested plant density for TC Blend seed corn is 2-3,000 plants/acre higher than the conventional planting rate (Optimum Quality Grains, 1997 and Kaplan, 1997). This increase in density will help compensate for the limited yield contribution of pollinator plants(5) (Carter and Mahanna, 1996). But once the plant density exceeds 30,000 plants/acre, an increase in density is not suggested. In addition, some specific products have higher or lower plant population optimums.
. . .
The percent oil and nutrient characteristics of high oil corn versus conventional corn are significantly different. High oil corn generally has higher oil content and essential amino acids (building blocks of protein). The elevated amino acids are lysine, tryptophan, and methionine. The change in nutrient composition is due to a physical change in the embryo (germ). High oil corn has a larger embryo which contains more oil and higher quality protein. However, these changes decrease the starch content of the kernel by approximately 1.3% for every 1.0% increase in oil content. The table below indicates relative nutrient proportions of Optimum high oil grain and conventional corn (Table 1).
Carter, P.R. and W. H. Mahanna, 1996. High Oil Corn. Crop Insights , Vol. 6 No. 16.
Kaplan, S. 1997. Unpublished. Optimum Quality Grains. 1997. Optimum High Oil Corn Resource Manual.
Pages 3-4.
Pioneer Hi-Bred, 1997. Pioneer High Oil Corn, Introductory Information . Nutritional Insights.
Strachan, S. 1997. Unpublished. Thomison, P.R. 1997. TopCross High Oil Corn Production: Management
Considerations. Extension Fact Sheet, af-135-97.
Inquiry to Dupont/ Pioneer by email
I sent an email to this address on Sunday, August 6, 2000. 6:55 a.m. asking simply why high oil corn is sterile:
http://www.pioneer.com/pioneer_info/forms/writeus.htm
Then I send a 2nd email asking:
1. What percentage of the oil is contained in the embryo; and
2. What percentage of the kernel is embryo at harvest time.
Wyffels site is deceptive and intrusive
I went to the Wyffels site. They invite us to ask them specific questions. What a lie!!! First they wanted me to "register" with my name and email. Then to phase 2 with more specific email and user ID's and then to phase 3 where they want me to inventory all my livestock and grain for them, tell him my date of birth, and generally give them all the critical information about myself and farming program. In short, they are not giving me information, they are gathering information!! Typical tactic of bureaucrats!
Inquiry to University of Illinois by email
At 7:30 a.m. Sunday 5 August 2000I sent the following email to: <swansonb@uiuc.edu>:
I am a 4th generation Illinois farmer and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana with a degree in Agricultural Engineering.
With my 2 brothers I farm 2000 acres in Illinois in 3 counties.
I have the following questions about high oil corn. Please direct me to the person who can answer these questions.
Question #1: Why is high oil corn sterile?
Question #2: When did the Illinois High-Oil selection program start - and was it tax-supported?
Question #3: When does the corn embryo stop growing and why? In particular, are plant auxins or hormones involved?
Question #4: Are high oil corns generally longer season varieties?
Question #5: In general, what other factors besides length of season affect embryo size?
Question #6: What factors affect embryo size and what is the sensitivity of each factor?
Thanks for your cooperation.
In case you haven't caught my drift yet, I think that Illinois taxpayers are being cheated by the robber barons again. High oil corn should be heirloom seeds. The taxpayers have likely paid for the research and now Dupont locks up the profit by the outrageous method of selling seeds that produce a sterile crop - thereby insuring dependence on corporate ficta - - until we figure it out.
Attorney Douglas Palaschak
Another big corporate lie - the oil comes from the embryo which, of course depends on pollen from the blue kernels
I have handled corn for many years - and I have shoveled corn from corn bins. I observe that high oil corn is, well, oilier - and less dusty when I shovel it. The oil likely comes from the cob also! My point is that whatever the traits, they show up in the F1 phenotype independently of the blue seed!! The embryo oil story is to steer us away from the truth which is this: the gender specific sterile pink and blue seeds have the purpose of ensuring sterility. They are instruments of oppression! They are not critical to high oil.
Players in the sterile seed wars
Attorney Richard Lewis, a US lawyer who plans to take legal action against Monsanto. Mentioned in BBC article.
Kenny and Becky McComb. Local folks who sell sterile seeds and invest their own money in a warehouse so that Monsanto can make exorbitant profits and further enslave us. Kenny and Becky already paid taxes years ago to pay for the Illinois high-oil selection program. Now Monsanto swooped down and put a genetic lock on the benefits of the taxpayer funded program. This is a good example of the short-sighted thinking that will put McCombs and other farmers out of business. They don't like big corporation but they are slaves to them. The McComb family had a balanced diversified dairy and grain farm years ago but gave up the dairy business as did many local farmers in order to devote all their labor to corn which is now priced only 5 times higher that it was during the lowest prices of the great depression of the 1930's.
Monsanto. These are the folks who make a living selling stuff that kills indiscriminately. Now they have bought Pioneer seed. It is time to resume growing our own seeds, folks!
Research regarding: The Terminator Gene
From: http://www.bio.indiana.edu/people/terminator.html
How the Terminator terminates:
an explanation for the non-scientist of a remarkable patent for killing second generation seeds of crop plants
by
Martha L. Crouch, Associate Professor of Biology
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana, USA
crouch@indiana.edu
This paper is one in a series of essays meant to stimulate and inform discussion of the subject. The author invites readers to correspond with her directly if they have comments or questions about her interpretation of the Terminator patent.
revised edition©1998
an occasional paper of
The Edmonds Institute
20319-92nd Avenue West
Edmonds, Washington 98020
USA
published with the help of grants from:
The HKH Foundation
The Funding Exchange
C.S. Fund
Introduction
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have become a commercial reality in agriculture. For example, it is estimated that in 1998 over 18 million acres in the United States will be planted in Roundup Ready® soybeans, which were first introduced in 1996 (Horstmeier 1998). These soybeans are engineered by Monsanto Corporation to contain a bacterial gene that confers tolerance to the herbicide glyphosate, or Roundup® , also made by Monsanto. Only two years after the introduction of Roundup Ready® soybeans, over 30% of the corn and soybeans planted in the United States, and close to 50% of the canola planted in Canada, have been genetically engineered to be either herbicide or pesticide resistant.
Monsanto and the other companies that have invested heavily in biotechnology in the last two decades are starting to make some money after years of promises without products, and they are aggressively protecting their patented seeds. In a recent issue of the Farm Journal (Monsanto 1997), Monsanto ran a full page advertisement asking farmers to respect the company's property rights:
It takes millions of dollars and years of research to develop the biotech crops that deliver superior value to growers. And future investment in biotech research depends on companies' ability to share in the added value created by these crops. Consider what happens if growers save and replant patented seed. First, there is less incentive for all companies to invest in future technology, such as the development of seeds with traits that produce higher-yielding, higher-value and drought-tolerant crops....In short, these few growers who save and replant patented seed jeopardize the future availability of innovative biotechnology for all growers. And that's not fair to anyone.
In the future, companies and government breeders who genetically engineer crops may not have to ask for such compliance. If the procedure outlined in a recent patent comes to fruition and is widely used, plant variety protection will be biologically built into the plants themselves.
In March of 1998, a seed company later to be purchased by Monsanto, Delta and Pine Land Company, in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture, was awarded U.S. Patent Number 5,723,765: Control of Plant Gene Expression. Although the patent is broad and covers many applications, one application favored by the patent's authors is a scheme to engineer crops to kill their own seeds in the second generation, thus making it impossible for farmers to save and replant seeds.
This "invention" has been dubbed the "Terminator Technology" by Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), and that group of researchers have analyzed some of the technology's serious social, economic and environmental implications (RAFI 1998). However, many of the consequences of Terminator cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of the science behind the invention. In this paper, I outline the steps involved in engineering Terminator Technology into a specific crop. After explaining the process, I then discuss which details might have the devil in them.
Overview
To help describe the Terminator procedure, I have confined the explanation to only one of