Roundup Ready Weeds Proliferating Nationwide - Lack Of Crop Rotation Making Matters Worse

[hatrack]

PAOLA, Kansas (Reuters) - Farmer Mark Nelson bends down and yanks a four-foot-tall weed from his northeast Kansas soybean field. The "waterhemp" towers above his beans, sucking up the soil moisture and nutrients his beans need to grow well and reducing the ultimate yield. As he crumples the flowering end of the weed in his hand, Nelson grimaces. "When we harvest this field, these waterhemp seeds will spread all over kingdom come," he said.

Nelson's struggle to control crop-choking weeds is being repeated all over America's farmland. An estimated 11 million acres are infested with "super weeds," some of which grow several inches in a day and defy even multiple dousings of the world's top-selling herbicide, Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate.

The problem's gradual emergence has masked its growing menace. Now, however, it is becoming too big to ignore. The super weeds boost costs and cut crop yields for U.S. farmers starting their fall harvest this month. And their use of more herbicides to fight the weeds is sparking environmental concerns.

With food prices near record highs and a growing population straining global grain supplies, the world cannot afford diminished crop production, nor added environmental problems. "I'm convinced that this is a big problem," said Dave Mortensen, professor of weed and applied plant ecology at Penn State University, who has been helping lobby members of Congress about the implications of weed resistance. "Most of the public doesn't know because the industry is calling the shots on how this should be spun," Mortensen said.

EDIT

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=analysis:-super-weeds-pose

[HopeHoops]

1. Monsanto is evil.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. Work with the 'weeds'...not against them.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1987-07-01/Good-Weeds.aspx

[truedelphi]

3. The problem is, the weeds that are proliferating are not necessarily

the normal weds that an organic garderner would welcome.

For instance, I let my thistles come to full bloom before I pull them,then Iplant my summer flowers.

The thistle restore the earth to the needed Ph, and I not only am saving myself the expense and health risk of using a weed killer or inhibitor, but I don't have to use fertilzier either.

And the flowers are gorgeous, until the deer find them.

I am not sure that the weeds resulting from hybridizing with other weeds after the RoundUp applications are something that farmers would consider working with.

[NickB79]

4. That's anathema to our industrialized way of agriculture

What your link suggests works well in small holdings (I've actually used their suggestions in my own 1 acre of gardens, orchards and flowerbeds), but probably isn't as compatible with the current system of massive acreage monocropped with soy and corn by heavy machinery.

The solution, obviously, is to get rid of the current system and go back to a smaller, less fossil-fuel-dependent, and more diversified agricultural base. In fact, it's likely inevitable we will, as global climate change and Peak Oil deliver our farmlands a 1-2 punch, but in the meantime farmers and agricultural scientists at Big Ag industries will do all they can to cling to the dying model we currently have.

[Nihil]

5. Not strictly true ...

> The problem's gradual emergence has masked its growing menace.

The thing that has "masked its growing menace" is stated clearly just afterwards:
"the industry is calling the shots on how this should be spun".


> An estimated 11 million acres are infested with "super weeds," some of which
> grow several inches in a day and defy even multiple dousings of the world's
> top-selling herbicide, Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate.

So, not just getting weeds but poisoning more of the consumers of the crops.

Yum ...

:puke:

[txlibdem]

6. none of this would be a problem for greenhouse grown crops

[NickB79]

7. Do you happen to know where one can purchase a greenhouse the size of Iowa?

Shipping costs might be a bitch, though.

[txlibdem]

8. Why is this important to you?

The total area of greenhouse crops is 627,100 Hectares (1 hectare = 2.41 acres), so that's 1,511,337 acres.

http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=59922

That's a rather large area. So I ask again, why Iowa???

/edited to remove conversion error.