...amazing that we haven't seen many news stories about this...

15-Year-Old Field of GM Tifton 85 Grass Suddenly Produces Cyanide; Kills Cattle

http://www.examiner.com/article/15-year-....

News broke yesterday that a farmer in Elgin, Texas, lost fifteen cattle out of an 18-member herd, after turning them into a pasture planted with Tifton 85 grass, a popular variety noted for its high protein content and high digestibility released in 1993. It is a variety widely planted in Tennessee.

According to Jerry Abel, the owner of the 80-acre farm just east of Austin, TX, “When our trainer first heard the bellowing, he thought our pregnant heifer may be having a calf or something,” said Abel. “But when he got down here, virtually all of the steers and heifers were on the ground. Some were already dead, and the others were already in convulsions.” Fifteen of the 18 cattle turned into the pasture were dead within hours.

Initial tests on the grass showed that the grass was producing cyanide gas, killing the cattle. According to the report, USDA scientists are currently dissecting the grass to determine if a random mutation may be to blame, and what may have caused it to occur. Dr. Gary Warner, an Elgin veterinarian and cattle specialist who conducted the 15 necropsies on the dead cattle, suggested a possible link to the ongoing drought, expressing concern that it may be a combination of factors that led to the mutation. Other ranchers in the area have had their Tifton 85 fields tested, and several of the samples have tested positive for cyanide, although no other cattle are believed to have died to date.

Although at least one reporter claims that Tifton 85 grass is not genetically modified, the report upon which she bases her claim does not mention genetic modification one way or another, nor does it specifically state that Tifton 85 was developed by conventional plant breeding. Similar refutations on the web, such as this one stating that Tifton 85 is conventionally bred, offer neither credentials nor any evidence. This site, however, maintained by The Georgia Seed Development Commission, states conclusively that Tifton 85 is a sterile pentaploid, which means that the two parent varieties had differing numbers of chromosomes, thus creating a naturally sterile hybrid (similar to crossing a donkey and a horse, resulting in a sterile mule.) According to the original news report, however, the farmers were aware that the grass they planted had been genetically modified, with reporter Lisa Leigh Kelly stating: "The grass is a genetically modified form of Bermuda known as Tifton 85."

Regardless of whether the Tifton 85 in this case was genetically modified or conventionally bred, we know that it is a hybrid resulting from a cross between Tifton 68 and an African bermudagrass, the latter of which was known to produce cyanide gas in certain situations.

Although the debate over conventional plant breeding versus genetic engineering in a laboratory is important and scientifically valid, both methods can yield unintended consequences. Even natural, non-hybridized grasses can cause cyanide poisoning in livestock, as many plants, including many grasses, respond to stresses such as drought by producing biochemical compounds, including cyanide, which provide the plants a variety of benefits including protection from herbivores.

Other toxins abound in the plant world, making it vital for ranchers to properly assess the plants in any intended grazing area, for the safety of their livestock. This can prove frustrating, however, as stated on Cornell University’s website of Plants Toxic to Livestock: “IMPORTANT: Just because something is on the poisonous plants list doesn't mean it can't be a good food or feed, and just because it is absent from the list doesn't mean it is safe!”

With such questions of safety arising from even native plants, one has to wonder even more about the wisdom of the USDA’s recent decision to approve the sale and planting of GMO alfalfa and other crops, despite mounting evidence of the harm created by those genetically modified organisms already released. It certainly throws a major wrench into the works for small producers of organic, pasteured meats, poultry and milk, although the Center for Food Safety has already vowed to sue both the USDA and Monsanto to prevent its release, as they successfully sued to prevent the release of Monsanto’s GM sugar beets.

Monsanto’s genetically modified Round-up Ready Corn, soybeans and other crops have, along with Bayer’s neonicotinoid insecticides, have long been suspected in the widespread disappearance of European honeybees and other vital pollinating insects, and a study released in March also implicates Monsanto’s GM crops for recent declines in the populations of monarch butterflies. In addition, the widespread use of Round-Up has led to the creation of entire new generations of herbicide-resistant “superweeds,” which have become such an epidemic that they were a main topic of last month’s National Weed Summit.

All of this makes it that much sadder – and more infuriating – that the Senate voted a resounding “NO” to labeling genetically modified organisms in our food supply. If nothing else, they have drawn the line in the sand, since over 90% of Americans are in favor of mandatory labeling. If nothing else, it makes it all the more important for each of us to support the efforts toward mandatory labeling of GMOs in California.

So, all other questions aside, how can a rancher best provide high-quality forage for his cattle, while reducing or eliminating the possibility of a recurrence of cyanide poisoning, such as that in Texas? One way would be to establish fields of Native Warm-Season Grasses (NWSG), such as those promoted by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, University of Tennessee and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

These fields can be established either by direct planting, or by active soil management, to allow the seedbank already present in the soil to grow and thrive. Since the varieties are native to Tennessee, and therefore already adapted to our climate and its extremes, they require fewer soil amendments and/or chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides than do commercially available grasses. If they are interplanted with a nitrogen-fixing plant such as clover, and the soil treated with waste mica to provide a source of soluble potassium, there is a chance to eliminate chemical fertilizers entirely, which would help to improve the health of the soil food web and of the cattle, not to mention the end consumers.

It is certainly preferable to the apparent biological time bomb, awaiting the as-yet-unknown proper conditions for spontaneous cyanide production, that is Tifton 85.

Already posted.

http://tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-w....

Holy ****.

This may belong in general rather than the existing bar thread.

I missed it posted in the bar

Quote:

National Weed Summit

who knew there was a National Weed Summit?

As discussion in the Bar shows, many grasses actually produce this chemical after drought, so NBD.

NBD unless it is your cattle. I've never heard of 15 heads of cattle falling down, seizing, and dying at one time like that. Sounds like a matter of degree with the cyanide generation.

I attended a hay meeting at a nearby ag extension office a couple of years ago. The forage specialist from the state research center was very impressed with Tifton 85. Seems that she earned her doctorate in Tifton.

As i posted in the bar, tifton-85 is a hybrid not a gm grass.

there is nothing wrong with it. in fact it is a dang good grass for cattle and horses.

Gotta love this:

Quote:

Even natural, non-hybridized grasses can cause cyanide poisoning in livestock, as many plants, including many grasses, respond to stresses such as drought by producing biochemical compounds, including cyanide, which provide the plants a variety of benefits including protection from herbivores.

In other words, "Don't eat me ****er, I'm nearly dead as it is"

Bermuda grass is native to the Serengeti Plain and co-evolved with the massive herbivore migrations. It does not surprise me that it evolved this defense mechanism to protect itself from extinction during drought periods under heavy grazing pressure.

Fascinating stuff.

I don't doubt that the cynanide is produced naturally in drought-stressed grasses. But in this concentration that would induce death to such large animals so quickly?

When drought stressed some of the warm season annuals like Sudan, Johnson grass, corn can kill cattle with high nitrate levels.

Snooze wrote..

It does not surprise me that it evolved this defense mechanism to protect itself from extinction during drought periods under heavy grazing pressure.

It's not just a defense mechanism - if it's able to off a large herbivore, that's paydirt!, baby, if there's no stinking hu-mans around to stick their noses in where they don't belong.

Just think of the fertilizer now available, and fluids might leak out, too, enriching & perhaps watering the localized mini-cyanide factory plot.

The Tifton-85 pasture in the article would have been in heaven with 15 dead cows leaching away for a year or two...

Good point. Grass as a predator. No wonder we keep it mowed.