The Cornell team said the risks to monarchs could be heightened because the butterflies migrate northward through the U.S. Corn Belt from their winter homes in Mexico during the spring months, when corn pollen is thickest.
The cool, wet spring in the Midwest delayed planting of the corn and soybean crops and that means pollination of these two crops is happening later in the summer.
Jeff Scates, a farmer in Southern Illinois, said about 75% of his family's farm was underwater last spring, and he didn't finish planting his corn crop until early June.
Already weakened by sickness and malnutrition, the Pilgrims with the help of this wonderful Native American struggled through the spring and summer to make it to their first successful corn harvest.
Like the pork and beef industries, in the early spring of 2012, the chicken industry believed this summer would yield a bumper corn harvest, and so it upped production levels to utilize this large crop.