Quote Originally Posted by Hoosiersmoker View Post
Look across the top of a cornfield and notice the uniformity of height also. Hybrids have been "honed" to use minimum water, sun, and nutrients and still produce maximum yield. I'm still on the fence on whether this is a good thing or not. There's some genetic engineering but advances is determining the best strains and "cultivating" those has increased dramatically too. It is kind of creepy to think of millions of corn plants that are technically identical. Exactly the same amount of ears per plant, same amount of leaves etc. When I was 12, I worked detasseling corn for Pioneer and Migrow for just this purpose. I didn't know that at the time, but they were paying $5 /hr which was a fortune at the time (48 years ago) I stayed the whole season and got a $50 bonus too!. By the end of the summer I bought a $100 bike and several modifications for it with my own money and had lots of money in the bank for my age at the time. I also learned my first day why you don't wear shorts and a T-shirt to detassel corn!
As much as I basically don't agree with virtually all food stuffs being bio and genetically engineered. I also realize that 2/3rds the population of the planet would starve to death in a very short time if the technology were to suddenly fail. Non hybrid 100% organically grown foods stuffs cannot and will not ever produce as high of a yield as the modified stuff, nor will it produce vegetables as aesthetically pleasing. In my opinion society as a whole gets too caught up in wanting every tomato, squash, bell pepper of head of lettuce, ETC. to be the exact same size and shape.