greybeard
Herd Master
I don't raise row crops of any kind other than my garden for home canning purposes but I am NOT a big fan of Monsanto. It's not what they do so much as their heavy handed ways of doing it. They've gotten too big for their britches as we would say here.
Having said that.....
I would be interested to know what kind of straw you are referring to. Straw is the dried stalk of cereal grains with 99% of all commercially sold and produced straw coming from barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat, with the majority of it coming from rice and wheat. As far as I know, there is no GMO wheat, rice, oats or barley sold or produced in the US. They have been developed, and extensively tested in field trials by Monsanto and BASF in wheat but haven't been approved for use or sale as of 2013. There was an instance of GMO wheat being found in a single NW Oregon field in 2013, but investigation by USDA found that to be an isolated case, and subsequent testing by USDA and Univ of Oregon and Wash State Univ of 20,000 different plots across Oregon and Washington State by found no more instances of the GMO wheat.
There is a big difference between GMO and hybrids. Hybrids is a natural "cross breed" usually via pollination or stolon joining of two or more strains of a plant takes place whereas GMO is a modification of the genes on a molecular level within the seed germ to achieve a specific desired outcome--usually a resistance to a chemical, disease or climate anomally such as drought.
Now, are there herbicide resistant cereal grains? YES! but they are hybrids or a result of a natural "breeding up" of a plant found to be naturally resistant to (whatever). In the case of rice, researchers at the Univ of La spent years looking for a rice plant that survived herbicide spraying (to get rid of an invasive and very resistant weed called Red Rice) . One single desirable rice plant was found in a field plot where all other rice plants died after herbicide application. It was taken by to LSU ag dept, grown to seed production, those seeds were planted and 1/2 were sprayed. The "offspring" of the single plant did not die. The other 1/2 of the seeds were then planted as cultivars for a bigger seed crop and the seeds from those plants were again planted for more seeds. Extensively tested, they are not GMO. Since that time, oats, barley, and wheat have all gone thru the same procedure at different places and what is known as Clearfield varieties of cereal grain are the norm today. Using organic nature to find a non-chemical non-genetic manipulation to solve a problem.
Does this mean straw sources are not sprayed with herbicide? No. They are. But they are not sprayed with Roundup unless done after harvest of the grain. While growing, wheat and rice are usually sprayed with imazadones.
In the case of the bare spot mentioned in another post we need to keep in mind the 1st rule always used in medical diagnosis, science, and even police investigations. "Effect does not equal causation". The bare ground can be caused by anything. A soil sample test can be very revealing. I have the same problem in a spot where I used to keep geese and it is caused by high Nitrogen levels from the goose poop. Your results may vary.
I firmly believe everyone should be afforded a choice in what they eat, use and buy, and be informed of what is in it or used on it.
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