The insecticidal protein Cry1Ab has been shown to leach from
corn debris into adjacent streams (Photo: Pam Brophy)
A new study by Indiana’s University of Notre Dame has
revealed that streams across the U.S. Midwest contain
insecticides from adjacent fields of genetically engineered
corn, even well after harvest. The transgenic maize (GE corn) in
question has been engineered to produce the insecticidal protein
Cry1Ab. Pollen, leaves and cobs from those plants enter streams
bordering on the cornfields, where they are said to release
Cry1Ab into the water.
Notre Dame
ecologist Jennifer Tank and colleagues conducted a field survey
of 217 stream sites in northwestern Indiana, six months after
the corn harvest. 86 percent of those sites contained corn crop
debris, and Cry1Ab was detected in the debris at 13 percent of
those sites. That said, Cry1Ab that had presumably
leached out of corn debris was detected in the water itself at
23 percent of the original 217 sites. The concentrations were
not provided.
"Our study demonstrates the persistence and dispersal of crop
byproducts and associated transgenic material in streams
throughout a corn belt landscape even long after crop harvest,"
Tank stated.
The study also concluded that 91 percent of the 200,000 km
(124,274 miles) of streams and rivers in Indiana, Iowa and
Illinois are located within 500 meters (547 yards) of corn
fields. Cry1Ab, a byproduct of the bacterium Bacillus
thuringiensis, does already occur naturally in the environment –
expansive crops of corn that produce it, needless to say, do
not.
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