Monsanto and the Monarch Butterlfy

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Monsanto Years
You never know what the future holds in the shallow soil of Monsanto, Monsanto
The moon is full and the seeds are sown while the farmer toils for Monsanto, Monsanto
When these seeds rise they're ready for the pesticide
And Roundup comes and brings the poison tide of Monsanto, Monsanto

lyrics by Neil Young

Monsanto really are the bad guys here. They gave us Agent Orange. While GMO proponents will say “GMO does not mean Monsanto” it owns most of the GMO seeds, the monoculture mega crops and Roundup, the herbicide it invented. Monsanto controls 80 percent of the GM corn market, and 93 percent of the GM soy market. That's a pretty big bite.
Monsanto dominates global market in GM seeds

In flies the beautiful Monarch Butterfly Danaus plexippus
Screen Shot 2015-08-26 at 11.03.48 PM.png

Range and Migration Map of the Monarch Butterfly
Screen Shot 2015-08-26 at 10.18.52 PM.png

Enter the villain: Monsanto
Monsanto = Roundup + glyphosate + GMO crops + mega farming + loss of milkweed = decimation of Monarch butterflies

Tracking the Causes of Sharp Decline of the Monarch Butterfly
The use of Roundup has effectively eliminated milkweed from almost all of the habitat monarchs used to use.
Taylor: What we’re seeing here in the United States is a very precipitous decline of monarchs that’s coincident with the adoption of Roundup-ready corn and soybeans. The first ones were introduced in 1997, soybeans first, then corn. By 2003, 2004, the adoption rate was approaching 50 percent, and then we really began to see a decline in monarchs. And the reason is that the most productive habitat for monarch butterflies in the Midwest, in the Corn Belt, was the corn and soybean fields [where milkweed, which monarchs feed on, grew]. Before Roundup-ready crops, weed control was accomplished by running a tiller through those fields and chopping up the weeds and turning over the soil, but not affecting the crops. The milkweed survives that sort of tillage to some extent. So there were maybe 20, 30, 40 plants per acre out there, enough so that you could see them, you could photograph them.
[…]

Taylor: Oh, yes, it’s gone up. The glyphosate used in agriculture has tripled since 1997, when they first introduced these Roundup-ready crops. The developers of these crops not only provided the seeds that were glyphosate-resistant, but they also provided the glyphosate — the Roundup. And, boy, that was a pretty good system. You could make money on both, right?

Risks they face
Monarch butterflies are currently facing three major risks: illegal logging, lack of milkweed plants and climate change. WWF’s 2013-14 report from Mexico showed that the number of monarch butterflies wintering there was at its lowest in 20 years. This finding was determined by measuring the amount of forest they occupy; in 2013, the number of butterfly acres decreased to 1.65 acres compared to 27.5 acres in 2003.

Monarchs need mountain forests in Mexico for their winter habitat, however nearby human communities also rely on them and create pressure on forests through agriculture and tourism activities.
In Canada and the U.S., monarchs need places to reproduce and feed. Herbicide use is also decreasing the availability of their primary food source, the milkweed plant.

Climate change threatens to disrupt the monarch’s annual migration pattern by affecting weather conditions both in wintering and summer breeding grounds.

What can we do?
Plant milkweed, with caution, be careful to plant only the right species of milkweed. There are over 70 species of milkweed so look for the one that is native to your area in the guide below. The one to avoid is the tropical Asclepias curassavica.
Plan to save monarch butterflies backfires


Planting the Wrong Kind of Milkweed May Harm Monarch Butterflies

Here's a planting guide:
Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide

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MarilynW's picture

I set it for 7:30 PDT but I had to publish it manually.

Something wrong there?

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gulfgal98's picture

I distinctly remember scheduling it, but when I went to edit it yesterday morning, it was not on the scheduler. I ended up publishing manually too. I would like to know if anyone else has had a problem recently as my diary for next week will have to be scheduled in advance. I am hoping it was a one time hiccup.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

MarilynW's picture

so it's not one time.

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burnt out's picture

what I was doing, but maybe not me after-all............or else, oh crap, maybe I'm the one who broke it. O :

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All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon

another great Morning Greens, thank you. I've got a test essay queued up to test the scheduler for 8:00 PM central, I'll post about the results after the test. Thanks for the heads up folks.

JtC

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MarilynW's picture

I could never write that diary on that other place. It would be swarmed with pro-GMO bullies yelling SCIENCE!
They never have much to say about the SCIENCE! on the Monarch butterfly decline though.

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gulfgal98's picture

I really learned a lot from reading this. Good

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

MarilynW's picture

After this I will combine the Morning Greens with my OT on Tuesdays. See you there gg!

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gulfgal98's picture

that I had been so caught up with other issues that I had not paid enough attention to this extremely important series like I should. I will be watching for and following your series from now on.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

MarilynW's picture

hoping someone is listening but if not, I'm getting things like worrying about another threatened species, off my mind.

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mimi's picture

you post it as the daily OT, I definitely will read it. Well, now in the evening I am going to read it ... :).
Keep drumming, we will march and follow!

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gulfgal98's picture

Not sure how that happened. Blush

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

backporch. Should be the appropriate genus as I got them from livemonarch.com. Hoping to transplant in a couple weeks to a spot I've picked out in the backyard. I'll let everyone know if I end up with any monarchs. I've read that there is a population that stays in Florida year round. We'll see.

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MarilynW's picture

The genus to avoid is Tropical Milkweed, Asclepias curassavica and that is the one being sold at http://livemonarch.com.
I've checked the information and it is backed up by two sources. Here's one of them:

http://entomologytoday.org/2015/01/16/planting-the-wrong-kind-of-milkwee...
“Tropical milkweed provides monarch larval food throughout the year, and reports of monarchs breeding during the winter — rather than migrating or overwintering — have become common in the southern U.S.,” the authors wrote. “These behaviors are almost exclusively restricted to sites where tropical milkweed is present.”

To make matters worse, the researchers found that monarchs that did not migrate were more likely to be infected by the protozoan Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE), which causes the butterflies to suffer from wing deformities, smaller body size, reduced flight performance, and shorter adult lifespans.
“Shifts towards year-round breeding on tropical milkweed, resulting in high rates of OE infection, could pose an additional emerging threat to the long-term viability of migratory monarchs,” they wrote. “Transitioning from migratory to non-migratory behaviors coupled with a shift to year-round breeding on introduced host plants dramatically increases the prevalence of a debilitating parasite for North American monarchs.”

It's not a good thing if Monarchs do not migrate according to what I have been reading.

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MarilynW's picture

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MarilynW's picture

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burnt out's picture

yet the country seems to shrug it's shoulders and go right on as if nothings wrong. I suspect that future generations will look back on us in anger & disbelief.

We've been working with an old pasture on our place for the past four years, trying to eradicate the non-natives that took over after the field was abandoned twenty years ago and replanting natives that should already be there but aren't. Multiflora rose has been our biggest problem, man that stuff is hard to eradicate, but we're gaining on it slowly but surely. We were lucky in that Common milkweed was still doing pretty well when we started our little project so we've been planting other native wildflowers, including butterfly weed, another species of milkweed. It's hard to reestablish, but we have a few scattered plants out there now so hopefully they'll be able to keep going on their own from here on out. They don't call it butterfly weed for nothing, it attracts several species of butterflys plus lot's of different bees, beetles and others . But oddly I've never seen monarch caterpillars on them, only on the common milkweed. Not sure if they don't use it for egg laying or if it's just a matter of me missing them. But we've got both species so we're covered either way.

Here's another pretty good link for finding which milkweed plants are best suited for your particular area. http://monarchjointventure.org/images/uploads/documents/MilkweedFactShee...

Good post Marylin

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All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon

mimi's picture

I just looked at the butterflies of Hawaii, dreaming one day to live there and do nothing but gardening, reading, chatting here and re-cap my life. Smile
I also would like to have bees and a vanilla mini farm... Dreaming, dreaming....

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shaharazade's picture

dreaming is free...

Only trouble is gee whiz I'm dreaming my life away..... this song used to be my lullaby

Some modern (sort of) dream pop that is great top go to sleep to....

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MarilynW's picture

13 rose bushes, pathways and garden beds, flowering trees. But it was too much work from morning till night. And there were winter floods because of the clay soil. At times it was like heaven but I couldn't handle the work and didn't have the money to hire anyone. So here I am downtown with a balcony garden.

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gulfgal98's picture

I think I remember reading that this invasive exotic was introduced by the US govt. as a way to prevent erosion and to create "living fences."

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

burnt out's picture

where it's completely impenetrable. There's an old farm just down the road from here that hasn't been farmed for about forty years and you literally can't walk though some parts of it because of the multiflora rose. Birds love the hips and spread the seeds every where so we'll have to fight it forever I suspect. Never ending job.

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All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon

MarilynW's picture

You sure are doing a lot for your area. It seems Monarchs only lay eggs on milkweed, that's what is making their existence so threatened. Monsanto's glysophate has killed most of the milkweed on the great plains.

Monarchs do migrate to Mexico and some parts of the coast of California.

California Monarch Campaign
When Monarch butterflies come up in conversation, we usually think of the 3,000-mile journey they make between Canada and Mexico east of the Rockies. These Monarchs return each winter to roosts in the hills of Michoacan, Mexico, where they gather by the millions. What people often do not realize is that over a million Monarchs also make a western migration. Monarchs west of the continental divide overwinter along the coast of California and breed on milkweed as far north as British Columbia. Although the western winter roosts are not as large as their Mexican counterparts, these magical places may contain tens of thousands of butterflies. Many of these West Coast sites are open to the public.

Many of these sites are threatened by development and loss of the trees that create the unique conditions required by these resting butterflies. The Xerces Society, in cooperation with other conservation groups in California, has worked to protect these sites and offered expertise regarding their management.

The best site for Monarch info is Xerces.
http://www.xerces.org/california-monarch-campaign/

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burnt out's picture

somewhere. I do realize monarchs only lay eggs on milkweed plants. I just found it curious that I'd never seen any eggs on our butterfly weed which is also a species of milkweed. I have seen Monarch caterpillars on our common milkweed,(A. syriaca) but never on A. tuberosa. My comment was just a reflection on that, but probably didn't make myself clear. To illustrate here's a couple of pics taken on our place that shows what I've seen here regarding how monarchs use the two different species.
They seem to love A.tuberosa for nourishment but only lay eggs on A.syriaca. Don't know if this is typical but it's what we see here.
 photo monarch and fritillary on butterfly weed-500_zpsds0pskic.jpg

 photo Nymphalidae-Danaus plexippus - Monarch-2012-05-27 2_zpsbvuyn0hz.jpg

And yep, monarchs do migrate to Mexico and other places as well. Also knew that, thinking maybe you were replying to someone else? I'm confused, but that's not unusual either so......( :

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MarilynW's picture

pedantic or something like that. It comes from too much reading on the subject, while you are actually experiencing the subject in real life.

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MarilynW's picture

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shaharazade's picture

to post my thoughts about GMO's and Monsanto. I'm not anti science but I am dubious to say the least about the fruits of science, technology. My husband tells me I only 'believe' in hard science. Any truths scientific to my primitive mind are about the nature of the universe and the nature of our own reality on earth. Scientific being observation, measurement and structural construction and facts, studying the tea leaves we use to read and organize our existence and reality.

What about GMO's? Who believes that this ungodly combination of poison making, chemicals, genetic/ manipulating global industry is a boon to mankind. I love nature and I know deep in my body, mind and spirit that poisoning the with round up or something my brother in law whipped up to kill the weeds, or putting spider genes in tomatoes, is asking for trouble. The earth is already traumatized, this is Frankeniod food, it's is a byproduct of war. It kills the dirt, it messes majorly with all the connections that weave our web of life. How does such insanity end up 'feeding the world'? It doesn't.

It goes hand in hand with Big AG; mono cropping, centralized too big agriculture, factory farming, the crap processed food industry and the mass feeding of humans non food that 'brings good things to life'. Who wants their crap food not me.

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Shahryar's picture

My husband tells me I only 'believe' in hard science.

no idea what I meant, then.

We were talking about the big bang and the so-what-ness of it. I think the importance of it is that it makes some people say "whoa, it's gonna be hard to get to the end of this universe." Other than that it doesn't much affect us.

So what's "hard science"? Gravity? Temperature? Let's discuss this at a late supper.

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MarilynW's picture

and there is some good science advising caution on this technology. There are stories of these scientists being harassed and threatened by GMO proponents to the point where they are not releasing their findings. Even if GMO foods were absolutely harmless to human health what about the spraying of herbicides that is increasing every year as the weeds become tolerant of Roundup?

You're right about "it kills the dirt" because the mono-crop mega agriculture is very hard on the soil. Farmers where I live rotate their crops, they use a no-till method and some don't use any animal products for fertilizing. It's possible to do this but you won't make billions like Monsanto.

Using good farmland for bio-fuels is a very bad idea.

Let the proponents eat the tasteless GMO's. Those tasteless strawberries almost as big as apples, that's GMO for you.

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