The Error of Elightenment

The Ivy, The Maize, The Birthday Present From Hell.

  Slowing down, he turned at eight hundred east.  The hot sticky tar of the township road splattered on the inside of the wheel wells. Turned the air off, and rolled down the window, his seat cooler was still on though, might as well get used to the heat gradually.  The smell of corn overpowering, humidity condensing on the outside of his window forced him to run heat through the defogger, the ditch was full of water - it must've rained down here yesterday.  Ramparts of corn went by, the occasional bean field,and one ivy infested plot that caused him to roll up the windows briefly. 

  Perennial maize had become the crop of choice, very little tillage was needed - in fact many fields went years with out any tillage.  This was great because of the low input cost associated with such a crop made wide profit margins, but problems were developing: the ivy is the worst and is what is known as a frankenweed.  Vine's grow better than most other plants in a high CO2 atmosphere, easily out performing the perennial maze, several species of ivy have formed a symbiotic relationship (this evolutionary coincidence took place the following year after the block buster super toy "genetic splicing fun", was the "have to have", of every twelve year old on the planet.), enabling those plants to form a biological megastructure, many of the symbiont's that form that matrix have become extremely toxic, borrowing certain traits from the poison ivy and poison oak that make up a substantial part of that web of hideous life,  incorporating them in their own genetic make up, and in do so have showed signs of extreme toxicity.  A new variant of morning glory excretes a psychoactive scent that utilizes the impulse control in the more complex organisms, this is perhaps the most unsettling of the ivy's; "the ivy" as it is called is resistant to all know forms of herbicide, robotic plow systems can be used, but the plant material is highly corrosive, usually disabling most machines.  Burning it was the most used method of eradication; the smoke is noxious, weather conditions have to be just right, proper authorities alerted, and any down wind residents fifty mile's or less away - evacuated.