I've been thinking about this for a while, but haven't found any discussion on the topic.
I can understand why getting roundup-ready or clearfield seed would be appealing for food plots. As you're trying to establish a food plot and keep having volunteer plants come up blanket spraying of herbicide during the growing season would be helpful. But GMOs come with paperwork, restrictions, and a lot of extra cost. And of course, a person can't buy it once and then save seed from their crop because that's a violation of the contract and they sue people for that.
So here's my thought: google tells me 90% of the corn grown in the US is GMO (e.g. roundup-ready). I get the impression the non-GMO stuff is raised to sell at a premium price as non-GMO. So that bag of feed corn for $12.99 is virtually guaranteed to be GMO.
I'm less clear on the chances of getting clearfield sunflowers by buying bird seed. Last year, we planted bird seed (a bag of blend, and a bag of straight sunflowers). I haven't planted any this year, but we have a lot of sunflowers coming up from last years seed. I don't have any Sethoxydim or Imazamox to test their resistance, but I've been wondering about it since last year.
It seems to me that for a food plot, the best thing to do is be to plant feed corn or bird seed sunflowers, then if you have a weed problem test herbicide resistance in a small area. If it kills your crop, stop. If it doesn't afect the crop, spray it all.
Farmers of course are bound by the restrictions placed on them when they buy their seed.
So I guess I'm bound by the label on the bags of feed corn and bird seed?
I can understand why getting roundup-ready or clearfield seed would be appealing for food plots. As you're trying to establish a food plot and keep having volunteer plants come up blanket spraying of herbicide during the growing season would be helpful. But GMOs come with paperwork, restrictions, and a lot of extra cost. And of course, a person can't buy it once and then save seed from their crop because that's a violation of the contract and they sue people for that.
So here's my thought: google tells me 90% of the corn grown in the US is GMO (e.g. roundup-ready). I get the impression the non-GMO stuff is raised to sell at a premium price as non-GMO. So that bag of feed corn for $12.99 is virtually guaranteed to be GMO.
I'm less clear on the chances of getting clearfield sunflowers by buying bird seed. Last year, we planted bird seed (a bag of blend, and a bag of straight sunflowers). I haven't planted any this year, but we have a lot of sunflowers coming up from last years seed. I don't have any Sethoxydim or Imazamox to test their resistance, but I've been wondering about it since last year.
It seems to me that for a food plot, the best thing to do is be to plant feed corn or bird seed sunflowers, then if you have a weed problem test herbicide resistance in a small area. If it kills your crop, stop. If it doesn't afect the crop, spray it all.
Farmers of course are bound by the restrictions placed on them when they buy their seed.
So I guess I'm bound by the label on the bags of feed corn and bird seed?
