Klebsiella planticola--The Gene-Altered Monster That Almost Got Away

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/Klebsiellaplanticola.html

Let's talk about why today's conventional agricultural systems require
such massive inputs of pesticides and fertilizers. When a healthy soil is
first plowed out of native grassland, for example, the disease-suppressive
bacteria and fungi, protozoa and nematodes are present. For the first 5 to
15 years after plowing native grassland you don't have to use any
pesticides. No fertilizers are required because there is natural nutrient
cycling, natural nitrogen retention, and disease suppression. As you plow
that soil, you start to kill the beneficial organisms, you lose the
organic matter, and you lose the food to feed the beneficial
organisms. After about 10 to 15 years, if you're not adding back
adequate plant residue to feed those organisms, you lose them, and
start having significant disease problems. Then you either leave that
land and farm elsewhere, or in the US, we used fertilizers to keep
yields high. As more and more of the organisms were killed by the
salt effect of the fertilizers, and the constant plowing mined out
more and more of the organic matter, starving the beneficial
organisms to death, disease became a serious problem. And we started using
more and more pesticide to knock the disease back.

A balanced color environment as Oy predatory insects and animals such as birds feeding on R insects, these in turn feed on the V leaves of plants. When these balances are disturbed then there can be Oy-R mutations of animals and insects trying to find this balance again. Pesticides don't work well to replace Oy predators because they cannot counter innovate as well as Oy can, also there is no history of innovation like this against those R insects.