Rethinking Refuges? Drifting pollen may bring earlier pest resistance to bioengineered crops

Pollen wafting from bioengineered corn to traditional varieties may be undermining the fight to keep pests from evolving resistance to pesticides, according to a new study.

Farmers who plant Bt corn, which is genetically engineered to make an insecticide produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, by law must plant non-Bt corn nearby, explains Bruce Tabashnik of the University of Arizona in Tucson.