I have a family member in Corvallis, Oregon who does research for the EPA. This research has often involved GMO plants. My guess is that something got out of the research facility unintentionally.
Couldn’t migratory birds eat and poop out germinated seeds from one region to another?
Monsanto is suggesting deliberate sabotage.
Look who’s wearing the tin foil hat.
surely we should take Monsanto at their word - this is obviously not GMO wheat, it must be a natural mutation and the farmer can happily and legally grow it and sell the seed to all and sundry …
It’s only mysterious if you consider ANY truth at all in Monsanto’s statements on the matter. They lie over and over and over again because they think the public and the media are chumps.
The people of this country, nay, the WORLD, need to sue Monsanto into oblivion, raze the building and salt the earth where their corporate HQ now stands.
“The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not strangers to our land!”
I’m not a big fan of Monsanto, myself, but I’m really confused by this comment.
It’s not Monsanto that’s doing the testing. The USDA and outside researchers haven’t found any evidence that GMO wheat is growing in other places or that it’s contaminating the US wheat supply. The only place it’s popped up is this one spot. So it is a mystery. We don’t know where this came from or how it ended up in a single field in Oregon.
Obviously, Monsanto’s assertion that the wheat was placed there by saboteurs is kind of ridiculous. But that’s why I mentioned it. Because it’s kind of ridiculous. And nobody seems to be buying that explanation besides Monsanto, itself.
pssst It’s aliens bent on monopolizing food production…
I just read a whole lot of corporate fact sheets kindly provided to me by the GOP, so my brain is sufficiently melted to solve this mystery.
See, God (and here I’m talking about the real God, the one in the King James Bible, not your tree worshipping hippy type “god” or the fake Jewish “G-d” or the evil Moslem “Allah” who is actually Satan) loves the American heartland more than anywheres else, because Jesus.  And we all know that genetically modified food is the solution to world hunger and nasty insects that nobody likes anyway (except Satan) because Science!  Therefore, God has blessed this wheatfield, proving that America is better than anywhere else, and the farmer should fall to his knees, praise Jesus and pay a tithe to the great American way as personified by Monsanto, and we should lower taxes for everybody except the poor, who need more skin in the game.  Can anybody give me an amen?
It’s all so simple, people, why don’t you get it? Are you all stinking atheist Democrats or something?
Sabotage, riiiiiight. Those wicked eco-terrorists got into the GMO research facility, stole 2 cups of roundup-ready, and then slipped out without breaking a test tube or spray-painting ELF all over. Then they slipped silently into the supply chain, which is not only a different building, but probably in a different state, and…
Oh hell. If you were Hollywood, would you buy this script?
Are you suggesting gmo strains of wheat migrate?
I find that less likely then wheat pollen traveling much farther then we think it might. The pollen in the Willamette Valley (see kumarplocher) makes large clouds that travel for miles. While going north and east up and out to the Gorge is unlikely since the dead end of the valley is Eugene, it is not implausible. I am not thinking seeds, I am thinking gametes moved.
Perhaps a swallow could have gripped it by the husk…
I live in the large, rural, remote county in Oregon where the suspicious wheat was found. I know some wheat farmers. This whole thing makes little sense, but sabotage makes zero sense. Why wait 8 years to plant it? Why Umatilla County, so far off the beaten path? If you’re trying to make an eco-point, there are plenty of more effective places and ways to do it.
I wouldn’t really trust the USDA to be independent to the interests of Monsanto. Just saying.
So according to Monsanto when the wind or any number of pollinators relocate Monsanto plant genes into a farmers field it is the farmers fault and they owe Monsanto licensing fees but it Monsanto screwed up and pollinates a random farmers field it is all a big mistake that’s definitely not Mondantos fault at all. This may make for interesting court room talk next time Monsanto takes the next random farmer to court.
plumber?
Let’s see. “Eco-terrorists” fire bombed my town’s Center for Urban Horticulture because they mistakenly thought it contained genetically modified plants. Are you saying they are too impulsive for a little covert action?
How many hot teens can you fit in it?
