Bad Gene P450. Bad Gene!
I don’t know what got into Gene P450 in Sweet Corn. It turns out that this gene (or one closely related to it) is susceptible to common corn herbicides. So when you spray your sweet corn with Atrazine, the darn corn plant dies along with the grass. Bad gene behaviour for sure. What is it thinking?
Well, scientists have finally figured it out and have traced this gene in all varieties of sweet corn that die when sprayed. So they’re going to spend a ton of bucks to breed this gene out of corn. No more dying on the job just because you get whacked by something noxious. What do you think you are – just another grass plant? Oh wait….
So – you can sleep soundly tonight folks. Gene P450 has been identified and corn breeders are going to backcross that little troublemaker right out of existence.
Whew. That was a close one. We might have had to grow those varieties using organic methods.
Stuff like this is really scary. What happened to just growing corn naturally. Great links at the bottom with natural insecticides.
Pays to live greens last blog post..Environmental Friendly Printing Tips that Save
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What??? You don’t like spraying corn with chemicals? What???
It is indeed a scary world when you don’t look at the entire ecosystem when you launch a new technology. From corn to windpower – there’s a lot of posturing going on in the world for sure.