Can GM Hybrids Stop Western Corn Rootworms?
” Editors Progressive Farmer September 11, 2000 Genetically modified corn hybrids with built-in resistance to the western corn rootworm, are on the horizon. Monsanto Corporation has submitted its registration materials to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and reportedly hopes for a limited commercial release for the 2001 growing season. Dubbed the “billion-dollar pest” for its cost in insecticides and crop loss, is the western corn rootworm worried? Not likely. Can farmers relax? Not yet, according to Integrated Pest Management experts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The western corn rootworm, it turns out, is a formidable opponent — much more of a challenge than the corn rootworm beetle, which was the first pest tackled by a GM seed: Bt corn. The western corn rootworm probably showed up in the continental United States with the Mesoamerican wild ancestors of field corn. Very mobile, it has been called a man-made pest because of its expansion eastward with ce
