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GMO grass produces cyanide, kills cows


Charlie Prime

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This item from CBS was rather odd and disturbing...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57459357/gm-grass-linked-to-texas-cattle-deaths/

ELGIN, Texas

...Preliminary tests revealed the Tifton 85 grass, which has been here for years, had suddenly started producing cyanide gas, poisoning the cattle.

What is more worrisome: Other farmers have tested their Tifton 85 grass, and several in Bastrop County have found their fields are also toxic with cyanide.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are dissecting the grass to determine if there might have been some strange, unexpected mutation.

Elgin is about 10 miles east of Austin, Texas. Many hippies have set up organic farms in that area. I buy my natural honey from them.

Hope this isn't a trend.

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It said it wasn't a GMO grass it is a hybrid. Might be something in the soil. Kind of scary.

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It looks more like strychnine poisoning than cyanide poisoning to me. Although you do get seizures with cyanide, these are not as aggressive as with strychnine. The other symptoms witnessed are very similar to symptoms of strychnine overdose (overdose because both cyanide and strychnine are naturally-occurring chemicals in some plants and as such are eaten in small amounts as part of a natural diet).

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Keep off the grass!!

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What an awful death for the cattle. And how bizarre that it happened so suddenly and in more than a single location.

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Keep off the grass!!

lol....haven't seen one of friendly signs for a long time.

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lol....haven't seen one of friendly signs for a long time.

Neither did those cows!

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Yeah, for once the story isn't a GMO.. The grass is a true hybrid that was developed by a University and has been around for years.

And I'm pretty sure it's prussic acid poisoning that killed the cattle. Cyanogenic compounds rather than cyanide itself, it happens sometimes when grass is greatly stressed- cell walls break and the compounds in the outer tissues meet enzymes in the leaf tissues, and the grass is suddenly poison.

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Well, at least it was probably a better death for those cows than getting mutilated by aliens.

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Nobody will ever guess it was me again!

I really hate cows, mwhahaha.

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...it happens sometimes when grass is greatly stressed- cell walls break and the compounds in the outer tissues meet enzymes in the leaf tissues, and the grass is suddenly poison.

We did have a hellacious drought last year.

When I drove back from working in Los Angles all summer, it was dramatic. Heading east, there was greenery until about 40 miles west of Austin. Then suddenly nothing but total brown and death. Not a speck of green on any shrub, or field. Trees dropping leaves, and more brown than green.

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Was the hybrid grass genetically modified to grow better/healthier etc or to kill of insects.? But then some how mutated , & if so do they do the same type of modification with wheat/barly.?

Edited by CRIPTIC CHAMELEON
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PETA will claim that the farmer poisoned his own cows with cyanide.

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Was the hybrid grass genetically modified to grow better/healthier etc or to kill of insects.? But then some how mutated , & if so do they do the same type of modification with wheat/barly.?

Tifton 85 is a F1 hybrid only, it has not been genetically modified at all.

If there was serious drought in the area, it's more likely prussic acid poisoning, and that is something that normally occurs in some grasses when they are under stress. It's not a mutation.

What do they do with wheat and barley? Some are heirloom, some are hybrids, some are GMO. Depends on who the farmer is and where they source their seed from.

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I like your train of thought rashore.

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In case anyone is interested, I have read that Monsanto was producing GMO grass.

they are producing alfafa as far as I know:

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In case anyone is interested, I have read that Monsanto was producing GMO grass.

um, yeah.. just google up Monstanto frankengrass. Been around since early 2000's if I'm recalling right. Now there's gonna be Roundup Ready grass seed hitting the market. Well, bluegrass for golf courses at any rate, I have no idea how available it will be for regular consumers yet. Personally, I don't like GMO one little bit. I think we are screwing with nature in really wrong ways that can't be reversed.

However, I really think in this particular case it's a natural effect that a lot of grass can have- natural, genetically modified, or hybrid. I think GMO has gotten to be one of those hot overused words for us, and that's a shame, because it leads to even less understanding of what the differences are in hybrids and GMOs. And IMO, a majority of the people are already fairly ignorant about plant breeding.

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One would think that cows would have learned to avoid eating lethal grass.

Hybridization is a form of genetic modification.

Somebody is pushing the limits of safety with these modified cows eating modified grass.

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