It’s safe to say that Bt traits are beneficial to corn production and farming operations. Since their introduction, Bt traits have helped farmers more effectively manage problematic insects in corn.
“In the early years, most of our effort was really geared toward grower traits — yield, degree of netting, size, shape, maturity. That was really where the early genetic improvement was being made,” says melon breeder Bill Copes, in the demonstration garden of the international seed company HM Clause in[…]
Introducing genes for herbicide resistance into a crop permits it to be sprayed with weedkiller that really does then kill nothing but weeds. But that works only until the weeds themselves develop resistance to the poison. Read more