1.Superinsects Are Thriving in This Summer's Drought
2.Illinois Researcher Confirms Rootworm Resistance To Monsanto Corn Trait

EXTRACT: While the company peddles such flimflam, its ubiquitous products are making US crops more, not less, vulnerable to drought during the worst dry spell in a generation, at a time when scientists are predicting more-frequent severe weather events as climate change proceeds apace. (item 1)
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1.Superinsects Are Thriving in This Summer's Drought
Tom Philpott
Mother Jones, August 8 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/08/monsanto-superweeds-and-superinsects-compounding-drought-damage-corn-country

This summer, a severe drought and genetically modified crops are delivering a one-two punch to US crops.

Across the farm country, years of reliance on Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn and soy seedsengineered for resistance to Monsanto's Roundup herbicidehave given rise to a veritable plague of Roundup-resistant weeds. Meanwhile, Monsanto's other blockbuster genetically modified traitthe toxic gene of the pesticidal bacteria Btis also beginning to lose effectiveness, imperiling crops even as they're already bedeviled by drought. Last year, I reported on Bt-resistant western rootworms munching on Bt-engineered corn in isolated counties in Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. 

This summer, resistant rootworms are back like the next installment of a superhero blockbuster movie franchise. In a July 30 post, University of Minnesota extension agents Ken Ostlie and Bruce Potter report they've seen a "major [geographical] expansion" of rootworm damage throughout southern Minnesota, where Monsanto's corn is common. The severe drought, they add, has "masked" the problem, because rainstorms typically make rootworm-damaged corn plants fall over, and rainstorms haven't come this year.

Drought plus a plague of rootworms presents a compounded problem to farmers: The bugs tend to thrive under dry conditions, and the damage their incessant root munching does to plants above ground, like stunting their growth, is "magnified" by lack of water and heat stress, Ostlie and Potter add.

Last week, Minnesota Public Radio reporter Mark Steil filed a report on a workshop on Bt-resistant rootworms at which Potter spoke. Apparently, the entomologist minced no words:

Potter told them [the workshop's 100 attendees] the genetically modified corn is basically backfiring. "Instead of making things easier, we've just made corn rootworm management harder and a heck of a lot more expensive," Potter said.

Here's how Steil describes the interaction between drought and rootworms:

In fields with a rootworm problem, the bug damages the cornstalk's ability to absorb water just when it's needed most. With the roots weakened, the plant can also be more vulnerable to wind.

The Minnesota outbreak isn't the first sighting of rootworms rampaging through Bt corn country this growing season. Back in June, University of Illinois entomologist Michael Gray reported that "The western corn rootworm 'season' is underway at a pace earlier than I have experienced since I began studying this versatile insect as a graduate student in the late 1970s."

"In response to a request by a seed industry representative," Gray writes, he traveled to a county in west-central Illinois county to "verify a report of severe injury to Bt corn that expresses the Cry3Bb1 protein targeted against corn rootworms." When Gray reached the site, he found himself "amazed at the number of western corn rootworm adults in the whorls of plants." He also found "severe" damage at the roots. Gray doesn't name the company that the seed industry rep worked for, but the Cry3Bb1 protein, which is supposed to kill corn rootworms, is owned by Monsanto. To summarize, rootworms were enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet on the very corn that Monsanto had engineered to kill them.

Puzzlingly, Gray declines to conclude that the spectacle he witnessed means that the ravenous rootworms had developed resistance to Monsanto's seeds.

This does not mean that a resistant western corn rootworm population has been confirmed in Illinois. The registrant of this technology [i.e., Monsanto] has been notified and will conduct some follow-up investigations in these fields. So, at this point, precise reasons for the continuing performance challenges of some Bt hybrids expressing this protein remain elusive. However, producers should remain vigilant and report any performance issues that surface with their Bt hybrids regarding corn rootworm injury this growing season. [Emphasis in original.]

And what's Monsanto's reaction to all of this? Last year, as corn stalks fell over, their roots devastated by the pests, their plight documented in at least one academic paper and confirmed in a blunt EPA report, Monsanto flatly denied the resistance problem. Apparently, it's maintaining that stance. Here's Minnesota Public Radio's Steil:

Monsanto is studying the problem, but so far the company has found no definitive proof that the rootworm has built up resistance to its corn. Company officials say what's being seen in many fields may just be abnormally high rootworm populations that overwhelm even the deadly genetic weapon implanted in their modified corn. In a statement, Monsanto officials said the company collected rootworms from problem fields last summer. The company expects to finalize test results on the bugs this fall. Those results may show whether the rootworms have developed resistance.

While the company peddles such flimflam, its ubiquitous products are making US crops more, not less, vulnerable to drought during the worst dry spell in a generation, at a time when scientists are predicting more-frequent severe weather events as climate change proceeds apace.
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2.Illinois Researcher Confirms Rootworm Resistance To Monsanto Corn Trait
Dow Jones Newswires, August 17 2012
http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/08/17/illinois-researcher-confirms-rootworm-resistance-to-monsanto-corn-trait/

New tests confirm that damage last year to some corn fields in western Illinois was caused by rootworms that have developed resistance to a Monsanto Co. (MON) genetically modified trait, a University of Illinois researcher said.

Illinois becomes the second state where researchers say they have confirmed rootworm resistance to the gene, which makes a protein that kills the voracious bug. Last year an Iowa State researcher announced resistance in that state, a finding that fueled concern among farmers and agronomists about overuse of genetically modified crops causing the development of superbugs.

University of Illinois entomologist Mike Gray, who announced the findings at a Thursday presentation, said they reinforce what Iowa State entomologist Aaron Gassmann reported last year in nearby counties in northeast Iowa. Gray had reported the Illinois rootworm damage last year, leading to the tests.

"The results are very similar to what came out of [Dr. Gassmann's] labs," Dr. Gray said.

In both cases, Dr. Gray said, the damage resulted in fields where corn was grown continuously for multiple years, which increases the opportunities for the rootworm to develop resistance to the trait. Farmers typically rotate a field from corn to soybeans the following year, but recently more have planted corn year-after-year, spurred by the high price of the crop.

Corn plants that fall prey to the rootworm are weakened by the pest and can ultimately fall over during high winds.

The widespread prevalence of rootworm resistant corn, he added, left farmers without access to corn that doesn't include the gene. A Monsanto official disputed that assertion.

Monsanto is not conceding that rootworm resistance has been confirmed, but Ty Vaughn, the company's corn product management lead, said the company is treating all the reported cases as "expected resistance."

The company has added a program of recommendations for farmers who unexpectedly suffered rootworm damage last year, and that the results show farmers can easily manage the problem.

The top recommendations, Vaughn said in an interview, are for farmers to include soybeans in their crop rotation instead of planting corn every year, and to plant SmartStax, another Monsanto corn seed that includes two different traits that give the plant rootworm resistance. Soil insecticide use is the "distant third" recommendation, he said.

"They get hooked on the corn-on-corn train, and it's really hard to break free from that," Vaughn said.

In addition to university researchers, rootworm resistance has also drawn the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency, which last fall told Monsanto in a memo that its existing monitoring program was "ineffective" and said it wanted Monsanto to begin surveying fields at earlier signs of insect damage than it does now.