Roundup and GMO

[BTS]

I know GMO crops are not allowed in most counties but here in the U.S.A everything is GMO. The farmers spray tons of chemicals and for the most part they don't do anything???. I added some pictures of GMO soybeans that my boss is growing, the ground was worked and sprayed before planting. After the beans where up they were sprayed again but it didn't effect the weeds at all. He then sprayed again and still the weeds never even wilted. Sprays are getting stronger every year it seems like, anymore the beans about die when they are sprayed because it's such of a heavy dose, the weeds keep getting stronger against roundup and other chemicals.
Anyone else have these issues??? I think everyone should do away with the sprays and get back out the cultivators.

 

[unlacedgecko]

If non GMO weeds are developing resistance to Round-Up then that is very worrying, but not surprising if weeds are constantly exposed to selection pressure.

We have an industry body which advises on sustainable wormer use in sheep (SCOPS). I think they are excellent and I have heard of people slowing or even reversing wormer resistance through following their advice. Is there a similar body for use of arable crop protection products? Either in the US or UK?

 

[CornishTone]

Round Up resistance is an issue here in South Australia and we are GM free, so it has precious little to do with GM and everything to do with poor husbandry. Don't get the two confused!

If used correctly, genetically engineered plants have the power to do so much good in terms of increased nutrition and reduced chemical use.

In the case of Round Up Ready, it should be used as part of an integrated Weed management strategy, in rotation with other methods not as a sole means of control. That is a disaster waiting to happen!

Simply getting out the cultivators again is not the answer, unless you want to go back to the dust bowels of the 1930's.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Round Up resistance is an issue here in South Australia and we are GM free, so it has precious little to do with GM and everything to do with poor husbandry. Don't get the two confused!

If used correctly, genetically engineered plants have the power to do so much good in terms of increased nutrition and reduced chemical use.

In the case of Round Up Ready, it should be used as part of an integrated Weed management strategy, in rotation with other methods not as a sole means of control. That is a disaster waiting to happen!

Simply getting out the cultivators again is not the answer, unless you want to go back to the dust bowels of the 1930's.

I agree entirely. I think part of the problem is Round Up Ready facilitates poor husbandry, as reaching for the Round Up is the easy option.

I should have explained more clearly that I don't think weeds are cross breeding with Round Up Ready.

 

[Exfarmer]

Some plants will always develop resistance if a spray is used continuously.
When we grew evening primrose it was obvious that it had a pretty high natural resistance to glyphosate. We actually did some limited trials to see if we could use it as a weedkiller on that crop as it seemed susceptible to nearly everything else.
By continually cropping with RR varieties you will ccertainly be encouraging all other species to naturally select for resistance too. It is no difference to the blackgrass situation.

 

[CornishTone]

Some plants will always develop resistance if a spray is used continuously.
When we grew evening primrose it was obvious that it had a pretty high natural resistance to glyphosate. We actually did some limited trials to see if we could use it as a weedkiller on that crop as it seemed susceptible to nearly everything else.
By continually cropping with RR varieties you will ccertainly be encouraging all other species to naturally select for resistance too. It is no difference to the blackgrass situation.

Not some, all. In any given population there will be a small number with the necessary genetic mutation to sneak through. Weeds, insects, fungi, what ever pest you look at you can select for the mutation by not rotating products.

We see it happen very quickly in Annual Rye Grass here. There are properties nearby with resistance to Fops, Dims, SU's and Round Up! It is possible to sort it out but it takes several years of grazing and making hay so NOTHING runs to seed. Diligence is key but there's no easy cure!

 

[ollie989898]

This is another non-news item being banded about with a basic anti-GM slant.

The other is the dicamba issue, which is all over the US press and has been for a little while. Turns out soybeans will appear to pop their clogs if you so much as wave a can of dicamba in a threatening manner in their general direction. Although in reality you suffer absolutely no yield loss from this.

The problem with the yanks is that too many of them don't want to spend any money because the economics of chemical applications per se are very shaky, and they have weed problems which are beginning to kick them, having already beaten decades of cultivators, rippers, hippers and christknowswhat contraptions.

Of course it was inherently foolish to use glyphosate as the medium with which to grow a herbicide tolerant crop, but the only reason it was successful commercially was because it was so cheap that people would actually do it and use a herbicide in the first instance. It's like trying to sell fungicide to an Australian wheat farmer 'we don't get disease'.

 

[CornishTone]

Of course it was inherently foolish to use glyphosate as the medium with which to grow a herbicide tolerant crop, but the only reason it was successful commercially was because it was so cheap that people would actually do it and use a herbicide in the first instance. It's like trying to sell fungicide to an Australian wheat farmer 'we don't get disease'.

We've had no problem justifying a fungicide for the last two years, even in areas which traditionally haven't bothered. But it has been jolly wet and Septoria has crept over from Victoria in the last few years.

Fungicide resistance management is now something they really need to get a grip on. They've twigged where they went wrong with herbicides but there are some that happily trot down the same road with fungicides to save a couple bucks per ha. There are people throwing one low rate application of prothioconazole on year after year with nothing else, using SDHI's by themselves, you name it there are those that will do it. Always a wilfully ignorant minority of course but, a fungus spore will travel further than a Weed seed so it's a potentially bigger headache for neighbours and wider farming community.

 

[BTS]

It's no wonder the weeds are getting a resistance against the round-up, the weeds grow in the ditches taller then the corn does in the field, the weeds get misted with spray and then reseed. Over many years of this they are becoming unkillable. I don't know why the farmers don't mow the ditches and water ways to help keep the weeds down. Everyone sprays probably 4 to 5 times a year in each field with the same sprays. Some farmers are even talking about spraying their dry wheat right before harvest to get a jump on the beans that will go in after the wheat. I think that is a horrible idea because that dry wheat will just soak up all that spray.



The wheat is also sprayed down with fungicide which does weird things to it. One friend I was talking to said it makes a real thick weird stem on the wheat that is harder to cut. I grow the old wheat from the 1800's which doesn't have issues with fungus or any other diseases, all the farmers around even comment on how my old wheat looks so much better then the new varieties.

 

[Will Blackburn]

To be fair, when the populace start spending more than 50% of their income on feeding themselves I'll grow wheat from the 1800s.

 

[CornishTone]

There's a company here that grows small plot trials of old varieties to keep the genetic material going. The oldest I believe is from 1870's. Fascinating to see, but it certainly doesn't look better than modern varieties and I sure as hell wouldn't want to grow it! Pickled in disease, all fallen over and very small ears.

 

[ollie989898]

Fungicides do cool things to plants. Stiffening the stem helps stop lodging, and would be highly desirable, particularly for spring wheat which likes to fall over a lot anyway.

And you want farmers to mow many thousands of acres of ditches and verges purely because the weeds are tall? What are the environmental implications of using all that steel and diesel?

I do not and will not understand the complete anti-technology/luddite contingent on this forum, probably ever, actually. This is farming, on planet Earth, with now near 7 billion paying customers telling you what they want.

No one yet is going to pay you a premium for something because it was produced using museum agriculture.

 

[graham99]

Fungicides do cool things to plants. Stiffening the stem helps stop lodging, and would be highly desirable, particularly for spring wheat which likes to fall over a lot anyway.

And you want farmers to mow many thousands of acres of ditches and verges purely because the weeds are tall? What are the environmental implications of using all that steel and diesel?

I do not and will not understand the complete anti-technology/luddite contingent on this forum, probably ever, actually. This is farming, on planet Earth, with now near 7 billion paying customers telling you what they want.

No one yet is going to pay you a premium for something because it was produced using museum agriculture.

for me the technology is why we have low prices across the world for food.
reason 1. technology lets one man do more,
putting another man on the dole,
who the govt. then have to feed,
they then control the price food so they don't have to tax the first man,
to much to provide the food to the man on the dole

 

[ollie989898]

for me the technology is why we have low prices across the world for food.
reason 1. technology lets one man do more,
putting another man on the dole,
who the govt. then have to feed,
they then control the price food so they don't have to tax the first man,
to much to provide the food to the man on the dole

Sorry but in my view, you have it entirely backwards.

A society in which most of the people are preoccupied with obtaining and procuring food will not advance very quickly. The history of Europe throughout the middle ages is littered with famine and hunger.

Any country or system or government that actively seeks to keep the majority of it's populace tied to the land is doomed to poverty. There is no future for the West, nor the developing world, in subsistence farming. There is, quite simply, no money in it.