Herbicide-resistant weed irks farmers

[question everything]

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Herbicide-resistant weed irks farmers
By Juliana Barbassa
Associated Press

PARLIER - Horseweed was once merely a nuisance to farmers hard to pull out, quick to sprout back after cutting, and capable of towering over tractors.

Now, it's becoming a full-blown nightmare worthy of an agricultural horror flick: scientists in California have found clusters of the weed that are resistant to scores of herbicides, leaving farmers to fight an increasingly formidable and costly foe.

(snip)

The weed, also known as mare's tail, has always been around, but it wasn't until last month that University of California researchers confirmed that some strains of it had become resistant to herbicides such as Roundup, posing a threat to the nation's most productive farmland.

Researchers were alarmed by the weed's rapid proliferation. Its spindly stalks can be seen poking out of Napa Valley vineyards in the North, along highways and pastures in the Central Valley and in Southern California fields.

(snip)

http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21481~3002976,00.html#

[DemInDistress]

1. can you smoke it ????

[EC]

2. This is happening here too, in Wisconsin

I work in the county and one of the local farmers was just saying yesterday that she's having a problem with weeds this year, that weeds that were easily taken care of with Roundup last year, aren't dying this year from it, she has had to resort to using bleach. I told her I noticed that even at home, between the cracks of the sidewalks. I wonder if all the genetically altered seed have anything to do with this...