My first thought, as well.

... or crops that resist herbicide? Either way, it's hardly surprising that they would have an adverse effect on butterflies.

I wonder if we, as a nation, actually care enough to do anything about this.

Once your crop is h-resistant, you spray to your heart's content, and the cropland is essentially a sterile wasteland, with any non-resistant flora almost wiped out. Favourite food supply gone, the butterflies have to go much longer distances to find anything edible.

I've left the milkweed alone in my back yard this year, and will do so going forward, I guess.

We are in the middle of GMO cropland.

The secondary problem is soil microbial collapse which will ultimately degrade the health of the GMO crops themselves and anything else trying to grow in this now dead soil.

http://www.psrast.org/soilecolart.htm

-Airplane

Doesn't this occur to these people that this is not a good long term weed control strategy.

I have been trying to find this.

Why do you hate science????????

and their their winter habit is largely intact.

I've mostly assumed it was due to extensive use of insecticides and herbicides (agricultural communities don't like milkweed), but I can accept that GMO shit has contributed.

If you are not pro-GMO you are WOO!!!1111!!!

planted by my parents. This year, I ordered 32 milkweed plugs from Monarch Watch and several friends and I planted them in our yards. We plan to keep this up every spring. Monarch Watch is a a wonderful organization. There is a grammar school (or maybe a middle school) in Charlotte, NC that has done an amazing job of spreading the word about the plight of the Monarch Butterflys and getting people interested in growing milkweeds.

http://www.monarchwatch.org/

Flight Behavior is a 2012 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It is her seventh novel, is a New York Times Bestseller, and was declared "Best book of the year" by the Washington Post and USA Today.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Behavior

and yep, makes you care more about Monarchs more….

It's the other agricultural practices that accompany the GMO crops that are implicated in this article.

growing in profusion and choking out everything around it. We used to have roadside mowing in this county several times every summer. Now, they just mow 2 times per year and the johnson grass has taken over everything. It is over-taking our vegetable gardens and the fields we once mowed for hay are overrun with it. The folks who once were eager to mow my fields for the hay now consider it not worth their time. My neighbor now plants corn and beans on it. He uses mules and horses to do the plowing, planting & tilling. It is a thing of beauty to watch.

And have no ability to cause a decline in milkweed populations.

The original title of the OP was deeply dishonest and misleading. And people like this wonder why the woo-woo label is attached to them. When you have to make things up to make your alarmist case against GMOs, that should tell you something.

the resistant plants and the spraying go hand in hand.

if the hypothesis that milkweed population decline is the proximate cause of the monarch decline.

That's the entire point of Roundup resistent GMO crops.

Tilling land to plant crops, destroys milkweed (invasive native plant) eliminbates the only food the monarch larvae eat. They don't eat Bt corn they don't eat transgenic beats, they don't eat anything but milkweed. No milkweed no monarch larvae.

Weeds between crops especially invasive ones are not somethuing we can expect farmers to allow.

Pay farmers to maintain isolated milkweed stands.

20-30 years ago in Five Points CA. not every inch of ground was tilled for crops, those spots sported mad Milkweed.
But then there used to be dragonflies, butterflies, frogs and lizards as well.

Pls help in any way!!!

http://www.monarchwatch.org/

GMOs are,many eill always be just as safe, unless engineered to cause harm

Blame the asshokes who are spraying, not the GMO.

And yes, Minaanto/whoever evil, but stop taking out the pitchforkss where you don't understand what you're talking about. Without primitive selective breeding and splicing, the human race would be far more screwed than we are today as far as food goes. It's essential we do this in the future to create healthier, more productive plants.

The issue is with laziness and greed, not the science. I bet you're a rival to boot

Last edited Sat Jun 7, 2014, 09:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Not sure what that means..
Actually I had already changed the OP title. There is a better link above:
"modern agriculture" is more accurate.

...and proofreading is your friend...minaanto? Wtf?

Howmyiunhave nothing in your dismissal other than spelling.

I have a lot more idea what I'm talking about than you do. Because I actually understand science, and don't see it as a boogeyman.

For me...if you wish to be taken at all seriously at least try to write coherently.

In paleontology to a young earth creationist. From a real, accredited program at URI. He has since made a fortune with his degree he uses solely to give himself expert status, where he mouthed the right words long enough to fool,the board. A divinity school wouldn't give an atheist a degree. The head of the department told me there was no mechanism to deny it, though there probably should be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/science/12geologist.html?pagewanted=all

My cousin has a Masters in chemistry and discovered, among other things, that quinine causes night blindness, which lead to the tonic water pilots were drinking before night flights being banned. She constantly denies basic science for her apocalyptic fundamentalism.

So even if your claim I'd true, demonstrate it by actually applying said degree.

trump NRaleighLiberal's degrees? Or my BS in biology? You had better research NRL's credentials before you accuse him of not knowing what he is talking about.

And seriously, I have no idea what you love----"Howmyiunhave"? You have been told that spell check is your friend, and right there, where the "Post my reply" button is, you will find "Check Spelling". It has been made exceedingly easy for you and will not take long to use before you fit "Post".

Last edited Sun Jun 8, 2014, 01:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Blaming the "asshokes" who are spraying is the same thing as blaming the GMO crops. These crops are being engineered to withstand spraying.....so doesn't that mean that the GMO plant and the spraying are hand in hand?

There's a difference between culling weeds, and the scorched earth they're doing. It's the difference between Agent Orange dumping and getting rid of a stump. These people are using these crops to hire less workers, and "automate" their farming, formlackmof a better term for it. Same old problems. Different spplication

Life is a web.

this process is being multiplied over and over all over the planet in various ways.

they're also breeding areas for zebra swallowtails.

I noted the bumblebees were out in force this spring with my flowers. I've never used any pesticide or herbicide and the one neighbor who ever did is long gone.

Time to get some milkweed to plant, I see.