Do bits and pieces from genetically modified Bt corn plants affect non-target insects living in nearby streams? The University of Maryland’s Bill Lamp talks about his research and findings at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 25, in a presentation hosted by CFAES’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science. In Columbus, with a video link to CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, in Wooster. Details.
genetic engineering
Today at 3:30: Western corn rootworm and Bt corn
Iowa State University’s Aaron Gassmann discusses “Biotechnology and Agricultural Sustainability: Insights from Interactions Between Western Corn Rootworm and Bt Corn” from 3:30-4:30 p.m. today, Oct. 29, in 121 Fisher Auditorium at CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., in Wooster. You also can watch by video link in 244 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, at Ohio State in Columbus. Free. Details: michel.70@osu.edu. Gassmann’s lab studies, among other things, resistance to Bt corn by the western corn rootworm, a key U.S. corn pest (pictured is an adult male). Bt corn has been genetically modified for resistance to certain pests. (Photo: Tom Hlavaty, USDA-ARS.)
Wednesday: Can we genetically engineer crop pests not to be crop pests?
Fred Gould, the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology at North Carolina State and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, asks “Can Genetic Pest Management Protect Crops, Human Health and Biodiversity?” at 3:30 p.m. today in 121 Fisher Auditorium on the Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, and by video link to 244 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. Details: piermarini.1@osu.edu. Watch a 2012 talk that Gould gave on the topic here (52:09).
Growing green, with an eye down the road
Touchstone Research Lab’s new biofuel algae farm in northeast Ohio, which includes OARDC as a partner, is mentioned in last week’s Energy Efficiency News.
Meanwhile, Ohio State scientist Allison Snow, in a story carried by UPI on Monday (8/20), sounds a cautionary note about the possible future genetic engineering of algae. She holds an adjunct appointment in our college.