Engineered Crops Struggle in West Texas

By Britt Bailey and Marc Lappé

Conventional cotton growing amidst the West Texas heat. Photo provided by Texas farmer, July 1998

The daunting heat and ensuing drought in West Texas are taking their toll on livestock and crops alike, but nowhere more capriciously than on cotton. In mid-summer 1998, just as the last three Mississippi farmers received their settlements from Monsanto for the 1997 bioengineered cotton "failures," farmers in Texas are getting their first impressions of genetically engineered crops. And the reports coming in raise the specter of another year where genetically engineered cotton seed may not hold up to the fierce climate of the West Texas plains.

The "high plains" cotton farmers of West Texas boast nearly 4 million acres of cotton yearly, with nearly a million acres planted in and around Lubbock alone. This year, almost three quarters of this acreage has been sown with cotton genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate herbicide, known by its ironic sounding brand-name, Roundup Ready™. Just as the 1998 cotton season began, unrelenting heat moved into and sat over the plains, decimating particularly the non-irrigated or "dry-land" cotton. Even plants in the 192,000 acres of irrigated cotton fields around Lubbock are struggling. But small farmers in this region are hot under the collar for reasons they believe may have nothing to do with Father Sun. Those who have contacted us believe much of the problem in these fields is concentrated in their new genetically engineered plantings. They report seeing unique growth abnormalities in Roundup Ready™ cotton unlike any ever seen before even during the droughts and floods that visit this area regularly.

According to our farmer contacts, most were convinced by Monsanto and Paymaster Seed representatives that Roundup Ready™ cotton was the "way to go" this season. The new genetically engineered seed came with assurances there would be no reduction in yields. According to the seed representatives, Roundup Ready™ cotton promised to make farm life easier as well. If true, such claims would be revolutionary on two counts: First, they would establish unequivocally the superiority of the much touted genetically engineered varieties. And, second, they promised to have a "desirable" socio-political impact. Specifically, growers would not have to hire migrant farm labor to control weeds because farmers would easily be able to tractor-apply Roundup herbicide over the top of the cotton plants a few times during the season. Accordingly, West Texas farmers planted nearly 70% of the plains crop with Roundup Ready™ varieties. Since these engineered versions were represented as "improved" varieties of the well-known conventional varieties such known as HS26 and HS200, the local farmers readily accepted them. For some, it looks like their decision may be a tragic mistake.

Engineering cotton to withstand a few herbicide applications must not have been an easy feat. Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is known to have perhaps the most complex genetically controlled growth pattern of the major seed crops. In cotton, growth and development can be divided into five stages: 1) germination and emergence, 2) seedling establishment, 3) leaf and canopy development, 4) flowering and boll development, and 5) maturation. Although the transitions between these stages are not always distinguishable, a healthy cotton plant of a given variety will normally display consistent "phenotypic" characteristics. For example, the primary root, also referred to as the taproot or radical root, emerges from the seed coat during germination. Typically, this taproot extends long and deep into the soil as a single water-seeking probe. It is usually very straight and sturdy, providing the base for feeder roots that shoot off to the side and assure good access to deep soil moisture.

The Texas cotton farmers first began to suspect something was amiss just 2-3 weeks after planting. Even after soaking their fields with water, the genetically engineered remained stunted though still green. One farmer, who has asked to remain anonymous, realized that only the portions of his fields planted with Roundup Ready™ cotton were adversely affected. By mid-July approximately 600 acres of his Roundup Ready™ acres were not performing even as his conventional seed continued to grow relatively well under the oppressive plains heat. He pulled up some of each type, conventional and transgenic, only to discover that the root systems on the Roundup Ready™ varieties differed dramatically from the conventional norm (see photos).

'Normally' formed cotton taproot, conventional cotton. Photo provided by Texas farmer, 1998

Roundup Ready™ root systems. Taproots are abnormally formed. Photo provided by Texas farmer, July 1998

"In some plants," he said in a recent phone call, "the roots are so deformed, it is like putting a kink in a water hose. The plants just don't seem to be getting any water or nutrients." After he started talking to his neighbors about his findings, he found others with similar problems. Steve Lee, another long-time cotton farmer from Lubbock County watched his Roundup Ready™ cotton come up and in spite of adequate irrigation, his plants began to lean, eventually falling over and breaking off at the base of the stalks. "In all my 36 years of farming I have never seen anything like this," he told us. "The roots are deformed, in some there is a good taproot but no feeder roots, and in others there are feeder roots but only on one side."

Though theories abound and answers are still being sought, so far the farmers are the ones wondering why the deformations (which they call "retarded roots") appear to be showing up in the Monsanto Roundup Ready™ varieties. Others are treating the problem as if it were simply a weather-related catastrophe. Agricultural extension agents, Paymaster seed representatives, and university crop specialists have combed the fields for environmental explanations for the kinked, twisted, and split appearance of the roots of Roundup Ready™ cotton plants. But they may be missing the point. The Roundup Ready™ plants are the first genotypes in the biotechnology revolution in food crops sweeping American and international agriculture. The farmers may not realize their pivotal role in vouchsafing this new technology to the world. But this fact is not lost on the makers of transgenic seed.

"I just can't take a financial hit like this," said one farmer. "The seed companies are blaming us, and yet I have conventional cotton 20 feet away that is doing fine," he continued. Another farmer exclaimed, "I have been farming for 36 years and I have never seen anything like this." In mid July, Lee Barron a farmer and broadcaster, initially did not believe that the failures were only in Roundup Ready™ fields. Two days later he called our office to say he had been looking at Roundup Ready™ cotton all day, "and something is definitely going on in those fields, what it is I do not know." In despondence, a farmer who wished to remain anonymous, germinated Roundup Ready™ seeds germinated in a controlled setting. To his surprise he found the tips of the roots deformed with nearly 80% of the roots twisted and disoriented.

While the farmers are scrambling for answers, representatives of Paymaster Seed Company based in Lubbock, Texas (a subsidiary of Delta Pineland acquired by Monsanto on May 11, 1998) seem to be trying hard to look the other way. Mr. Will Love of Paymaster denied that there even is a problem. When we spoke with him last week about the alleged failures, he tersely asserted, "Ma'am, I don't know what you are talking about." Puzzled, we replied that a Paymaster representative had been out to investigate a farmer's field just the day before. Still Mr. Love professed, "There's a lot of things failing in Texas, and it's all weather related."

When we called the agricultural extension offices for the district and county, we found more receptive ears, but nobody was willing to say that the failures were Roundup Ready™ related. In spite of the fact both Dr. Randy Boman and Mark Brown, both of the government extension service, agreed that root problems were occurring in some of the Roundup Ready™ varieties, Brown said, "there are too many confounding variables to consider it a Roundup Ready™ problem. At most what we are seeing is due to poor seed quality."

This story is not unlike the 1997 accounts of the Roundup Ready™ cotton failure in Mississippi when nearly 40,000 inaugural acres were affected by what is referred to as parrot beaked bolls, cotton bolls that were not only deformed but actually fell off the plant. Currently one Texas farmer is reporting "parrot-beaked" bolls in his Roundup Ready™ cotton. According to Dr. Dan Krieg of Texas Tech University, 60% of this year's cotton is gone, and with only 40% left, he believes he will see only more problems, not less in surviving fields. What percentage is Roundup Ready™ and what conventional remains to be flushed out, though it is clear from our contacts that the Roundup Ready™ seed varieties were ill prepared to adapt to the Texas heat wave.

Monsanto has clearly gone to great lengths to develop and rapidly market their Roundup Ready™ technology, including buying many of the largest seed companies throughout the world. But is has stopped short of guaranteeing its performance. For many of the farmers brave enough to plant these new genetically modified varieties, this omission may be crippling. Short of arbitration hearings, hiring lawyers, wrangling with insurance agents, many of the small farming operations are taking a financial hit.

Cotton farmers in Texas appear to be unwitting guinea pigs in Monsanto's continuing genetic and environmental experiment with transgenically modified seeds. And while the reasons for the cotton failures remain unknown, one thing is certain: the farmers are the losers in this one.