Bob, you are in wheat country and I'm in corn, soy country so our expertise differs but we are on the same level nonetheless. My step mother was born and raised around Fessenden ND by the way and held land there. Her son how owns it. I was in that area a few times. Nice country and nice people. The R Deere I have was bought new in Fessenden and could possibly be the last new R sold out of that dealership. There, that makes this tractor related.
One good example of what modern genetics can do in wheat comes from an old farmer we used to harvest for in Oklahoma. He never bought new seed with new genetics. He just kept back seed year after year. His yields were at the level of the yields 70 years ago and the smut was so bad the elevator didn't want to take it. The rest of the farmers around there had good wheat for that area and they had no smut because they kept updating genetics.
Here in Iowa it's the same way. Our corn and soybeans yield better year after year partly because they are genetically modified to fight off the insects that like to feed on these plants. When these insects pierce the plant to suck the juice they open a pathway for disease to enter the plant. The disease hurts the plant more than the juice sucking hurts it.
As far as herbicide resistant plants goes, I don't see that as much of a yield booster in itself because cultivation can be used to control the weeds instead of herbicides. I don't know of anyone in this area who wants to go back to cultivating the crops for weeds though.
Before GMO's came to be our corn yield here in my neck of the woods had crept up to the 150 bushel per acre range. Now it's 200 up to 250. Part of that yield increase can be attributed to genetics but as lot of it is from the GMO side. The guys who plant non-GMO corn can say their yields were just as good as GMO on a certain year and I believe them but maybe the next year the root worms are bad in the corn because of extended diapause and a mild winter. Then the corn is a tangled mess and the yield goes way down. The evidence comes the next year with thick volunteer corn in the soybeans. They probably don't have much of a corn borer problem because they are riding on the coattails of the farms who do plant GMO. In fact, the non-BT corn farmers are helping the GMO farmers by planting a host crop that helps reduce GMO resistance.
Before BT corn we had corn borer moths by the millions splattering our windshields this time of year. Now we see very few moths because BT corn has taken care of the corn borer problem. Yes, there is claim BT corn pollen kills butterflies. Whether it's true or not is debatable. Expensive and dangerous insecticide spray is the only way to control them if BT corn is not planted and it's a fact that insecticide sprayed to kill corn borers does poison those butterflies for sure along with every other beneficial insect.
I mentioned extended diapause of root worms. Diapause means sleep. Extended diapause means extended sleep. In the past, if corn and soybeans were rotated year after year the corn rootworm larvae in the soil would hatch the next year in the soybeans but die because they had no host plant. They can't live on soy. Now the eggs and larvae have adapted and can winter over two years and come back to haunt in the next corn crop following the beans. GMO corn takes care of this problem. Yes an insecticide can be applied when the corn is planted but it's extra expense and bother. And who wants to handle hundreds maybe thousands of pounds of poison insecticide?
In soybeans we have a nematode problem in this area but nematode resistant beans has slowed the problem way down. Without this resistance the yields can easily be cut in half or more. There is no control over these nematodes besides planting GMO beans. One year when nematodes had just started invading this country I saved money by not planting nematode resistant beans. In the fall I lost yield and money big time. I saved five dollars per acre on the seed but lost 40 dollars per acre in yield. That's good incentive to 'go modern' with the seed.
So in the end, GMO's actually save the environment by mostly eliminating the need to apply or spray poison on our crops. By planting non-GMO crops the only money we save is in the seed. The other expenses are the same or greater.
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