> Relatively recently, almost all of the corn grown in the US was about
> 3 from one of 3 common "immortal" varieties (~40/50 years ago.)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, I suspect a typo? (I gather the
gist is that there used to be roughly three species of grain in the US,
in the past 50 years -- down from what was introduced with the
colonization some four hundred years ago (note, I'm not being snarky
about the colonization, but AFAIK there didn't "use" to be any grain
grown in most of what is the US today (not sure about California (old
Mexico))).
Note, I said corn in my original post (which I gather means the same in
Scottish English, as it does in the Norwegian (almost) homonym) -- I
meant grain.
> The amount of seed diversity that have been introduced by this breeding is actually substantial,
I thought Monsato generally sold Roundup. Are you saying they've
increased the variety of corn (or grain) that is grown in the US
substantially (and how much of that is patent encumbered)?
> Monsanto is more or less combing the earth for diverse varieties of corn.
Sure they are. And they patent it (which is a failing on so many
governmental and international levels I find it painful to think about --
I'm all for cataloguing species and genes, but granting patent on
something you literally found -- that's even worse than software
patents).
Now, if all they did was donate some to the world seed bank, and
allow everyone to share in their (non gmo) discoveries -- I'd have no
problem. But the idea that you might be committing a felony by planting a
carrot you bought at the market is revolting.