Dr. Donald S. Frederickson 
August 22, 1980 
page 2 
and technology to the feeding of an expanding population."^/ 
Corn now can be planted closer, can use fertilizer more 
efficiently, can be planted earlier, cultivated more easily, 
and harvested mechanically. Obviously increasing the pro- 
tein content in corn would represent yet another remarkable 
breakthrough. 
The proposed experiment should be scrutinized by 
a broad spectrum of scientists knowledgeable or interested 
in corn because the acreages planted in corn stretch the 
continent, because the corn now planted is nearly uniform 
throughout the country, and because the 1970 corn blight 
epidemic demonstrated how a mutant strain of H. maydis 
made "a liability out of a technology that had been devised 
to improve the efficiency of the nation's agriculture." **/ 
The corn blight of 1970 is well known. "The losses 
in 1970 wiped out, for that year at least, some of the gain 
in efficiency in corn production acquired so laboriously dur- 
ing 50 years of research and its technological application." ***/ 
We cannot, of course, hope to foresee all problems, 
but we have a responsibility to minimize potential negative 
impacts of technologies going awry, by trying to anticipate 
secondary effects from proposed technologies ahead of time. 
The corn agoecosystem is one of the world's most 
intensive agricultural production centers. For example, over 
95% of corn acreage in the Corn Belt is treated with herbicides 
for weed control. ****/ Among the herbicides in high use 
on this acreage is atrazine. The enclosed Study, "Mutagenicity 
of atrazine: a maize-microbe bioassay," was published in 1976 
and discusses the possibility that the corn plant converts 
chemicals into mutagenic agents. There have also been studies 
indicating that 2,4-D increases insect and pathogen pests on 
corn, which in turn requires heavier applications of insecticides. 
V National Academy of Sciences, Genetic Vulnerability of 
Major Crops , 1972 at 6. 
f*/ Id at 7-9. 
***/ Id at 9 
****/ Office of Science and Technology Report, Pest Management 
Strategies for Food Production in the Central Corn Belt, 
October, 1979 at 5. 
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