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First Superbugs, Now Superweeds
Slashdot ^ | 5/8/10 | Soulskill

Posted on 05/08/2010 7:12:26 PM PDT by Clint Williams

Finxray writes

"Years of heavy use of the broad spectrum herbicide Roundup has led to the rapid growth of superweeds. They are spreading throughout North America, creating headaches for farmers and posing 'the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,' according to Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts. From the article: 'The first resistant species to pose a serious threat to agriculture was spotted in a Delaware soybean field in 2000. Since then, the problem has spread, with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn. The superweeds could temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn’t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Technical
KEYWORDS: weeds
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To: Clint Williams

Go back to the cultivator. Farmers are giving too much money to the chemical companies already anyway.

And then there’s the seed companies...don’t even get me started.


21 posted on 05/08/2010 8:05:15 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (TATBO! - "Throw All The Bums Out!")
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To: Aussiebabe

Or solve unemployment by marching people through the fields pulling up weeds.


22 posted on 05/08/2010 8:07:00 PM PDT by tbw2 (Freeper sci-fi - "Humanity's Edge" - on amazon.com)
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To: JrsyJack; WVNan
Could this just be an anti-GM propaganda piece?

Yes, it's propaganda.

No, the problem is real.

Yes, Monsanto did everything they could to sell a lot of the safest herbicide in history just as their patent ran out while they were simultaneously forcing users into more toxic and proprietary products. So, the article is the usual shill piece that actually works to the benefit of chemical manufacturers. It is no accident that most environmental activist NGOs are supported financially by the tax-exempt charitable foundations of major industrial stockholders.

With respect to glyphosate, I predicted this nearly a decade ago.

23 posted on 05/08/2010 8:08:59 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: tbw2

LOL....yeah, I guess they will get Mexicans to do the jobs that Americans won’t!


24 posted on 05/08/2010 8:16:14 PM PDT by Aussiebabe
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To: Clint Williams

“Oops. Think maybe I’ve seen some of them superweeds in a gravel parking lot nearby. Nothing kills them.”

Try some oil from an old pcb transformer. It kills real good


25 posted on 05/08/2010 8:19:44 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: Clint Williams

We started in on the lotus in our 1 1/2 acre pond today, squirting them one leaf at a time. Otherwise, no pond in two or three years.


26 posted on 05/08/2010 8:21:15 PM PDT by Mercat
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To: Clint Williams

Gee, I thought this was just my imagination, thought I was applying the Roundup wrong or they had changed the formula. Apparently not! Interesting—and annoying.


27 posted on 05/08/2010 8:21:19 PM PDT by ottbmare (I could agree wth you, but then we'd both be wrong.)
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To: Redbob

“So this is the end result of no-till farming...”

Everything has unintended consequences


28 posted on 05/08/2010 8:22:11 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: EternalVigilance
But....that is really bad for the environment with all the soil erosion caused by the cultivators, soil dust causing global warming and lost of nutrients in the soil.
29 posted on 05/08/2010 8:22:19 PM PDT by Aussiebabe
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To: Clint Williams

Row crops were grown before herbicides came into common usage. I think it was called cultivating between the rows, or plowing up the weeds a time or two. Shouldn’t be too time consuming with the multi-row cultivators used on large tractors.


30 posted on 05/08/2010 8:23:19 PM PDT by Will88
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To: JrsyJack

Actually, no. We farm and we are seeing some resistance to Round-up and Treflan. Treflan is no longer giving us a good kill on Russian Thistle and Round-up isn’t working very well on Pigweed. If you use Round-up at the highest rate with a lot of adjuvants it will still kill the problem weeds.


31 posted on 05/08/2010 8:29:01 PM PDT by tiki (True Christians will not deliberately slander or misrepresent others or their beliefs)
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To: Trteamer

One tip on the Round-up it works better when the weed is actively growing.


32 posted on 05/08/2010 8:30:22 PM PDT by tiki (True Christians will not deliberately slander or misrepresent others or their beliefs)
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To: Aussiebabe

By the time you cultivate the crop is doing a fine job holding the soil in place, and it’s a whole lot easier on everything to turn the soil over a couple of times a year than it is to dump chemicals on it.


33 posted on 05/08/2010 8:35:33 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (TATBO! - "Throw All The Bums Out!")
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To: TChris

24D kills SOME broadleaf weeds. Thats all.


34 posted on 05/08/2010 8:37:48 PM PDT by imjimbo (The constitution SHOULD be our "gun permit")
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To: Clint Williams

Roundup is very toxic to humans. In fact, one of its “inert” ingredients is more harmful than the active ingredient, which is glyphosate, and certainly not good for us. But the inert ingredient polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA) kills human cells. And again the lowly frog shows us what we need to know, as its soft penetrable skin is like a canary’s to our own: Roundup kills frogs more than weeds.


35 posted on 05/08/2010 8:40:50 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Will88

We do Minimum Till but we still cultivate, when the plants are small you can usually get everything but the top 4 inches of the bed clean but as the plants get too big you can’t cultivate without harming them and for us that is about the time the monsoons hit.


36 posted on 05/08/2010 8:43:43 PM PDT by tiki (True Christians will not deliberately slander or misrepresent others or their beliefs)
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To: Clint Williams

Not just glyophosphat (Roundup) weeds are becoming resistant too. Our yard here has a couple of weed areas that have already been sprayed twice with a commercial 2,4D preparation exactly as labeled- and so far, several weeks later, appear to be relatively unaffected.


37 posted on 05/08/2010 8:47:34 PM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: TChris

See my reply- not working for me...


38 posted on 05/08/2010 8:49:33 PM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: JrsyJack
Could this just be an anti-GM propaganda piece?

I'd say that's a very good guess.

39 posted on 05/08/2010 8:54:02 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: Trteamer

Check the glycophosphate content. It varies.


40 posted on 05/08/2010 9:23:19 PM PDT by meatloaf
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