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Re: high nitrogen fertilization required for Bt toxin production



HI Dale,
As I pointed out it is a good idea to look at the full report. The issue
was significance and the statistical significance  was supported in the
publication. "The correlation of Bt -endotoxin concentration to an
increase in the amount of available N increases the was significant
(slope 0.006, F 6.72, P 0.03) (Fig. 2)".

Nitrogen Fertility Effects on Bt  -Endotoxin and Nitrogen Concentrations
of Maize during Early Growth
H. Arnold Bruns and Craig A. Abel
Agron. J. 95:207–211 (2003).

You and some other devoted acolytes of the corporations claim to be
authorities and deride the rest of us as unscientific. You and the
others seem to ignore the concept of statistical significance and
instead use intuition and a kind of religious authority. I think that
efforts at communication are hopeless. I will , however, point out that
before Dale (BD) science people read entire reports and knew about
significance.
Sincerely, Joe

Dale Wilson wrote:
Joe,


I think that it is wise to deal with the full publication, your
comments might have been reasonable had you not personalized them and
improperly suggested that the publication had found no serious
reduction.


Look, at 112 kg/ha N, which I regard as a fairly normal amount, they
got 367 ug/kg toxin.  At zero N added, which I regard as rather
extreme, they got 350 ug/kg.  That is a 4.6% reduction.  This was a
greenhouse pot study if I remember correctly, and they did no bioassay.
 Doing a bioassay on Bt corn leaves is a no-brainer in this context.
It is a cheap and easy technique.  The results the authors obtained may
be academically interesting, but is there really any, ANY reason to
think that this is important in practice?  GET REAL!  Like it or not,
Bt corn is a pretty big hammer that absolutely obliterates pests like
ECB.  Do you seriously think that a 4.6% reduction in toxin
concentration is likely to be important?

Joe I don't mean anything personal by this, I am just looking at the
numbers that are in the abstract you posted.

Dale


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