Another Planting Season in Sweet Corn Country

no foolin'

 About 35 years ago give or take, I was at a Venture Capital presentation in Baltimore.  This was for big $ types and I went along with some investors who wanted my opinion.

We listened to a lot a bullshit, no getting around that, but towards the end of the day a fella presented a genetically modified corn.  The deal was that in the corn's
 genetic structure there was something that if the corn worm ate it or started to anyway, he/she/it would die on the spot.  These folks did "side by side" plantings of regular sweet corn and this mutant corn and the results were, to say the least, staggering.

Courtesy of an old friend and cellist, Patrick Binford

A number of the big pesticide folks were there to hear this and the speaker was swarmed over at the end of his talk.  A regular spellbinder to say the least and the magic was cast I'll tall ya'.

One guy, from Johns Hopkins, a biologist I think, got up and asked if there was a cross pollination issue...could your corn spread to my corn.  NOPE was the reply. They had built in some sort of "no plant sex with strangers" safeguard.  Now, mind you, this was 1987...before the first of the Jurassic Park movies...and the biologist uttered the infamous words "bullshit".  Pardon my French. But he did. He was actually booed.

I call your attention to the picture of the corn worm (above). Coming to a theater near you.