Monsanto killed all of the Lightning bugs
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Topic: Monsanto killed all of the Lightning bugs
Posted By: Auntwayne
Subject: Monsanto killed all of the Lightning bugs
Date Posted: 15 Jul 2011 at 10:39pm
| I read this article on the web 2 or 3 weeks ago, the author stated that 35 years ago the amount of lightning bugs witnessed as compared to now has been totally decimated by the use of Monsantos insecticides. We were at Carlye Lake this past 4th of July, and , hardly seen, saw , 1 lightning bug,same thing as at our house, nothing . But, go out to the farm, where " chemicals " are prevalent , the fireflies are everwhere. What is going on in your neck of the woods ??? |
Replies:
Posted By: Gerald J.
Date Posted: 15 Jul 2011 at 11:22pm
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Surrounded by corn and beann fields and lots of lightning bugs, once its warm enough. When spraying a bean field for aphids the available insectides get all bugs, beneficial and harmful. So there's a trade off period to let the lady bugs have at the aphids first and sometimes they control the aphids without chemicals. When a farmer sprays with only the first attack of aphids, killing off the beneficial insects he often has to spray again. Might it be in town that the mosquito sprays also got the lightning bugs, lady bugs, and other things fed on by birds? Gerald J. |
Posted By: LionelinKY
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 6:58am
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I was kind of thinking the same as Gerald as it depends on who does the spraying. Farmers have to pay for the stuff directly as well as being good stewards of their land so they measure and calculate before they spray. Do you think owners/operators/caretakers of residential and recreational lands put as much thought into it? They just want "pests" gone. Plus, how much natural habitat do you suppose is left for them in a manicured property vs somebody's field. I will say though that I live in town here and the lightning bugs are a plenty at night much to the delight of my 3 kids. ------------- "My name is Lionel and I'm an Allisoholic" |
Posted By: MUM FARMER
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 8:07am
| GMO corn soybeans canola and now allfalfa and sugar beets we are in serious trouble dont kid yourselfs about the safty of these crops they will be the biggest threat to mankind and the animal kingdom. On the surface they seem great but really do your homework with an OPEN mind and connect the dots you will soon feel sick to your stomach for us and our kids and grand kids what we have allowed thru our ignorance oon this matter not many lighting buggs not many birds either |
Posted By: CTuckerNWIL
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 8:56am
I fit weren't for these genetically altered crops, the world would soon be at war for the limited supply of food. I don't mean a couple localized wars like we have now, I mean total world war. I have seen more birds and more kinds of birds in the last 15 years than I saw the first 40 years of my life. There are as many lightning bugs in the corn today as there ever were 50 years ago when we would catch them and put them in a jar. Most farmers that I know are responsible and won't over do on chemicals. The problems I see with chemicals come from people on an hourly wage working for commercial applicators. I've seen the wrong spray on the right fields, killing the crop and I've seen guys dump leftover spray so they could rinse the tank and mix for the next guy. That dump site is 50 feet from a drainage ditch that runs directly into rock creek and then the Rock river. There are things that need to be done to continue with a healthy world, getting rid of BT corn isn't one of them in my way of thinking. ------------- http://www.ae-ta.com" rel="nofollow - http://www.ae-ta.com Lena 1935 WC12xxx, Willie 1951 CA6xx Dad bought new, 1954WD45 PS, 1960 D17 NF |
MUM FARMER wrote:Posted By: michaelwis
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 9:02am
|
Biotechnology is here to stay . Locally we have what they call they 300 bushel club .. We are almost there .
I am concerned of the lack of bees in general .. Hopefully that will stabilize ------------- WD WD45 DIESEL D 14 D-15 SERIES 2 190XT TERRA TIGER ac allcrop 60 GLEANER F 6060 7040.and attachments for all Proud to be an active farmer |
Posted By: Rogers
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 12:46pm
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Its funny how something you were thinking about comes up. Just the other day I was talking to someone about how years ago there use to be lightning bugs everywhere. As a kid I caught them all the time. Now they are a rare site around here. What made me think about it was a kid saw one and wanted to know what it was. I laughed at first then decided it wasn't really funny. ------------- Think for yourself and be your own expert. Be willing to change your mind; however, willingness to change your mind doesn’t mean that you will. Blindly following any path is the pinnacle of insanity. |
Posted By: wjohn
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 3:17pm
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Getting a bit off topic in this part of the forum but GMO crops have lower nutritional value compared to traditional counterparts. Also, we would not be at war if we didn't have GMO crops. Look at all the land we waste on growing corn ethanol when American farmers are supposed to be "feeding the world." Almost 40 percent of the US corn crop goes to ethanol production... think of all the mouths we could be feeding if that had been planted as proper food-grade corn or better crops. Non-GMO crops have been and are more than capable of doing the job. It just depends on how responsibly we utilize the land.
Plenty of lightning bugs out here but not as many as we used to. Very very few Monarch butterflies compared to 10 years ago. Fish kills are up in my area with all of the idiots dumping on chemicals since their darling Roundup doesn't work any more.
I'll stick with cultivating my open-pollintated corn, thank you. Sorry for the rant. ------------- 1939 B, 1940 B, 1941 WC, 1951 WD, 1952 CA, 1956 WD-45 |
Posted By: mdm1
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 3:36pm
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Not being a farmer but a recreational land owner I have to take issue that we are not good stewards of our land! I have spent more on my land to enhance it for the wildlife big and small. Yes I do spray my cabin with insecticides to protect it from certain insect invaders. I have planted forage trees and crops for all the animals. My son has a degree in environmental biology so I get some lectures from an education I paid for. I see some farmers that really don't care either. Sorry about the vent but we take a bad rap sometimes. Oh I do have fireflies! ------------- Everything is impossible until someone does it! WD45-trip loader 1947 c w/woods belly mower, 1939 B, #3 sickle mower 1944 B, 2 1948 G's. Misc other equipment that my wife calls JUNK! |
Posted By: Gerald J.
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 3:46pm
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There is nothing nutritionally different in GMO crops. The food values are the same. And of that 40% of the corn crop that goes to ethanol, a third of that comes out of the ethanol plants as protein enriched distillers dried (or wet) grains that is super animal feed. More can come out as corn oil, only the starch is used up. That corn based ethanol used has cut gas prices in the US by more than a buck a gallon compared to burning pure petroleum based gasoline and also has cut air pollution by being a safer oxygenator than ground water polluting EDTA. So you are jealous of the corn farmer making a living, not selling grain for less than the cost of production like it was 6 or 8 years ago? Corn farmers can't sell cheap forever and stay in business. A major part of the price rises has come from speculators e.g. commodity funds playing the markets with more money than the market is truly worth. And they make money with options for rises and falls. Corn farmers make money only when the value of the crop when sold exceeds the cost of production and the makers of farm chemicals, fertilizers, and seed have arbitrarily raised their prices to increase their "share" of the proceeds. But us corn farmers have to sell at what the market will pay, we can't demand a higher price just because the price was too low for break even. We can only HOPE for a better price by not selling at harvest but by paying for elevator or our own bin storage, we can't demand a higher profit making price. As for shortages and surpluses a few years go with corn surpluses with cash prices in Iowa at $1.45 a bushel nobody made money on growing corn, so we invented alternative uses and now you are jealous? We had to increase demand. And we aren't getting those magic $7 a bushel prices, the elevators that bought earlier at $5 maybe selling at a profit, but with last year's harvest price about $5, we've been selling increments of the new crop and averaging maybe $5.80 a bushel. We don't have any left from last year to sell now. Bins are all empty because our crystal balls were cracked. There were no hints last October that while the futures price for January wasn't higher enough from October to pay for storage, shrink and drying (storage usually costs an extra percent drying over immediate sale), that in January the cash price was a buck higher. So we sold at harvest, the highest price of 2010. Gerald J. |
Posted By: michaelwis
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 3:56pm
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Thank you Gerald , you said it well ------------- WD WD45 DIESEL D 14 D-15 SERIES 2 190XT TERRA TIGER ac allcrop 60 GLEANER F 6060 7040.and attachments for all Proud to be an active farmer |
Posted By: victoryallis
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 9:22pm
| Well said Gerald. Alot a distillers being used to help cheapen rations. I like to say the corn is getting used twice same with the beans that go for soy desiel then soymeal. Besides as long as the check clears the bank I don't care what they use it for. Also the more fuel we produce here the less money we send to the middle east to support the terrorists. If anyone is concern about a lack of wildlife come to MI we have plenty of deer eating the crops and barn swallows sh*tting on everything to go around. |
Posted By: MACK
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 10:14pm
| Thanks Gerald. I told some one a few days age that we made money last year and looks like we should this year but by next year our cost for fuel, seed, chemicals,repairs, ferterlizer and every day expences will increase to the point the profit will be gone again. MACK |
Posted By: Bee
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 1:45am
|
Plenty of Lightning bugs, ticks, ants and bees everywhere here in NC. Strange this is the second year with no Japanese beetles. Read where bed bug infestations on the rise worldwide since almost eradicated by DDT thirty yrs ago.
------------- Bob, North Carolina 1949 B |
Posted By: Thad in AR.
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 6:15am
| Very few lightnin bugs or honey bees here and there used to be millions. I don't know the cause. Not much crop land near here so I'm sure spraying's not the problem. The only spraying around here is the electric co sprays instead of mowing powerlines. |
Posted By: MBWisc
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 8:07am
| Observation isn't cause and effect. Although important, opinion often isn't fact. We all have preferences which are right for us but not all. It isn't the difference of opinion that concerns me but the attachment of evil to that with which we disagree. It just isn't the same! |
Posted By: John (C-IL)
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 8:12am
|
Good job Gerald, the only thing that I would add is that the volume of fertilizer and pesticides used in residential and urban areas far exceeds anything that is used agriculture.
We had loads of lightning bugs here this year, it's pretty cool.
And a final point, to my knowledge I don't think Monsanto sells much insecticide that is commonly used in agriculture. BT in corn genetics yes.
As our country cousins get further removed from the farm they have less and less knowledge of what is happening, sad but true.
|
Posted By: victoryallis
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 8:17am
| The bees have a virus from what I hear. Not sure of what it's called at the moment. Every thing goes in cycles. Besides I think alot of the old timers are either dead can't or don't feel like bees anymore case in point my grandfather at 96 he doesn't feel like bees anymore. Most of us younger pups are less diversified and are bees really are not that appealling. |
Posted By: Charlie175
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 9:10am
and gnats! i was eaten alive down there last month. ------------- Charlie '48 B, '51 CA, '56 WD45 '61 D17, '63 D12, '65 D10 , '68 One-Ninety XTD |
Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 9:34am
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We don't have any lack of fireflies here... but I do use a pretty aggressive method to control japanese beetles... I took the target and bait off the silly little plastic baggie, and mounted it on a funnel, stuck into a 55-gallon plastic drum. I put about 4 gallons of water in the bottom of the drum and a shot of dish-soap... that keeps the barrel from blowing over, and kills the beetles when they fall in. Got one barrel on the south lawn (near the fishponds and flower garden, but downwind) and one in the north yard (near the veggie garden, but downwind). I hafta empty 'em about once every two weeks, but at least the dead bugs burn well. I have another target-on-a-tube stuck into the side of the chicken pen... when one falls down there, the girls fight to get it! The biggest chemical concern I see (and I"m very agricultural, but the 'city' is trying hard to come this way) is the use of SEVIN... if the beehives disappear, it's either a virus, or SEVIN. Extension office took samples, and in my hives, it was SEVIN. Too many people attempt to solve problems by buying chemicals at the big-box store, and hosing down their newly-built home... and more often than not, the attitude prevails in new developments, where land has been cleared, leveled, built upon, and sodded. Next worst thing, is golf courses... god forbid, you can't go out in plaid pants and a silly hat and become a roost for insects. I second the comment about commercial applicators, simply because of the way they handle the fields surrounding my house, and the job they did on the neighbors' fields. They do an excellent job of spraying Roundup on my arborvitae... and it's 12' in on MY side of the fence. Every year, he turns, and slams the boom into the fence, backs up, swings OVER the fence (still spraying) drives up on the berm (created by tillage) drives the OTHER boom into the dirt (still spraying) and hoses down all the grass and trees. Gonna get it on video one of these days and send it to my neighbor- this guy doesn't belong in a machine, much less handling chemicals. |
Posted By: CTuckerNWIL
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 9:35am
And tend to believe what some tree hugger got paid to write, whether it is fact based or not. I better be careful or this will be swinging to the political page. ------------- http://www.ae-ta.com" rel="nofollow - http://www.ae-ta.com Lena 1935 WC12xxx, Willie 1951 CA6xx Dad bought new, 1954WD45 PS, 1960 D17 NF |
Posted By: Wil M (NEIA)
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 11:09am
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Plenty of fireflys around here in this part of the corn belt. Also monarch butterflies. ------------- "Yet there are soulless men whose hand and brain tear down what time will never give again." Anderson M Scruggs |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 11:17am
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Is it just me or does this topic have something to do with:
Farm Equipment. Everything about Allis-Chalmers farm equipment. ????????????????????????????????????????????? I know you can read because you typed a post in english. |
Posted By: Auntwayne
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 10:09pm
| That boom crap doesn't cut it at our farm, when our waterways have been sprayed after our meticulous attention with herbicide, it was time to jump the hired sprayers asses. these are our well supplies since we have owned our farm (1918) 100 year centennial, our waterways had been silted in, bricks, blocks, stone had been washed ahead of any preventive measure. Now, after a large dose of ass chewing we have the respect of the contractors. However, this fall will require a new modified approach to our future needs. We see several issues that seriously need to be addressed. Our farm has never ran out of water, we are very lucky, when our neighbors wells have run dry, we always opened ours to them. The problem has been lack of reguard for waterways, my brother stopped a sprayer last spring as he was abourt to spray an obvious grassy waterway, and, the driver asked where the waterway was !!! Sorry for my inappropiate rant. YOU CAN NOT FIX STUPID !!! |
Posted By: jhid
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 10:29pm
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the sprayer that does the feild behind my subdivision always slams the boom into our brush pile which is a faw feet in from the feild. then he sprays the back couple feet of everyones yard on his first pass. I wonder how long it will be before he braks something ------------- red and green are nice for christmas, but orange is all year round http://www.canadianantiquetractor.com/tractorforum/ |
Posted By: BStone
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 5:41am
| Where I live the only crop that you could say is farmed would be hay, and it's mostly heavily fertilized coastal.I noticed several years ago there is very few lightning bugs left here.Don't know the reason but I don't think we can blame it on farm chemicals. |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 9:02am
| Bush did it!!! |
Posted By: Breeze
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 9:14am
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here ya go http://www.firefly.org/why-are-fireflies-disappearing.html - http://www.firefly.org/why-are-fireflies-disappearing.html |
Posted By: Reindeer
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 10:12am
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There has been a big problem in bees with an introduced bee mite. I found an article at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517110843.htm - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517110843.htm ------------- |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 10:39am
| There are plenty of them here at night. |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 10:54am
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There was a study done on how many insects are killed in the world every day by cars and my calculator doesn't have enough 0's in it.
Probably more killed per day by cars than what are killed in a year by chemicals. |
Posted By: JayIN
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 12:04pm
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We have far less fireflies now than in the 70's. Fewer bees. Southeast Indiana. ------------- sometimes I walk out to my shop and look around and think "Who's the idiot that owns this place?" |
Posted By: bill2260
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 2:45pm
| That cause has to be global warming. It has caused everything else. Al Gore says so. Bill |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 2:56pm
| Yea, Global warming or Bush did it. |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 3:11pm
| I bet there just flying around with their lights off. |
Posted By: AC WD45
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 6:12pm
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Monsanto started sniffing around a local farm, (the biggest dairy/cash cropper in the state) and the owner lawyred up big time and threatened them with several huge law suites, Monsanto backed off almost right away, guess they didn't want to play with someone they knew had the money to back them. ------------- German Shepherd dad 1957 Allis Chalmers WD45 #WD234847 1951 Allis Chalmers WD #WD88193 |
Posted By: DREAM
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 6:12pm
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Yeah, what Jeff said. Got to be geting in on "green living".
Don't have very many around home anymore. ------------- I didn't do it! It was a short, fat, tall, skinny guy that looked like me! |
Posted By: Jeff Z. NY
Date Posted: 18 Jul 2011 at 6:14pm
| Breeze, I have more than I can count at night or maybe it's the same one since they blink their lights. |