Organic Insect Control

[hoodat]

Bt is Bacillus thuringiensis a type of bacteria that attacks certain types of catapillars.

This year I sprayed the brocolli and cabbage after seeing the white butterflies around the garden. I've picked off the tiny white eggs laid by the butterflies, but I'm sure I missed some.

This year I'm using floating row covers like Reemey cloth to help keep inscects off the plants. It really works with leaf miner flies, and it may work for most types of beetles.

It works well but it's kind of pricey if you have a large garden.

 

[Grow 4 Food]

So is Bacillus Thuringiensis organic?

 

[patandchickens]

Yes


Pat

 

[seedcorn]

Yes


Pat

I know this is correct.

Explain to me how having the Cry gene in the plant is a negative because it kills insects but spraying the Cry gene on top of the plant to be injested by the insect and humans who eat the crop is good & organic? The Cry gene is the "manure" of the bacteria.

 

[patandchickens]

Explain to me how having the Cry gene in the plant is a negative because it kills insects but spraying the Cry gene on top of the plant to be injested by the insect and humans who eat the crop is good & organic?

I dunno seedcorn, that sounds more like a statement of personal opinion rather than an actual "explain to me how" question.

But, taking it at face value:

The cry gene occurs naturally in wild Bacillus thuringiensis. Just like apples occur naturally on apple trees.

The cry gene DOES NOT occur naturally in the genome of soy or other plants. Just like apples do not occur naturally on orange trees.

Thus, it is one thing to put Bacillus thuringiensis onto plants, or to make a fruit salad by slicing up some apples and slicing up some oranges and mixing them together in a bowl.

It is a whole 'nother thing to artificially insert a particular gene from Bt into the plant genome, where it has never previously occurred and where it can interact with all the plant's other genes in totally-unpredictable and pretty much unstudied ways; just as genetically-engineering an orange tree to produce apples is a whole different thing than a bowl o' fruit salad.

Furthermore (and the relevance of the following to the "organic" thing specifically depends on your personal view as to what organic means) having Bt used occasionally in the environment is a LOT less selective for resistant strains of pests, and a LOT less pressure on nontarget insect species, than having it continually produced in all the tissues of a crop plant everywhere/everytime that variety is planted.

But of course, you knew that.

Pat