In a message dated 8/2/00 6:56:42 AM, talon57@well.com writes:
>So we have fact #1) if the entire corn crop was 100% of this
>variety then the monarch would become extinct.
Not at all; in the wild monarch caterpillars will eat nothing but milkweed.
They don't eat corn at all, of any type. In any case, insects have so
far proved resistant to elimination by poisoning; we've yet to exterminate
one species with pesticides. And, god knows, we've tried.
If every plant in the world were a cultivated one, monarchs (and many,
many, other things) would go extinct. This is why improving the efficiency
of our crop production is so important. Better corn yields result in more
of the Great Plains being returned to the "natural" state.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:31 MDT