Tweaking or back to square one?
You assume that the shortfall was not serious and a few adjustments will allow KBLB to achieve meaningful levels of silk production.
You may be right. You may be wrong. We don’t know.
Thompson referred to an ‘acclimation’ problem. This word is artfully inappropriate. If acclimation were all that was necessary, the silkworms could be given a few extra days to grow and cocoon. Instead they died.
What did they die from? How old were they when they died? How many died? Why did they die after a successful pilot test? Will the new hybrids live and cocoon as intended?
Without knowing the answers to those questions, it is impossible to determine how big a setback this is for KBLB.
My nightmare scenario is that the silkworms are vulnerable to a disease that took time to establish at the farm. Early generations were mostly successful, but a small number succumbed and allowed the pathogens to increase their prevalence.
That scenario is not a given. The problem could be a sensitivity to temperature or humidity levels. It could be an inconvenience rather than critical.
No one knows. What I know for certain is that Thompson chose artfully inappropriate language to describe the problem. And I know that in the past he has employed similar language to disguise the severity of difficult problems.
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