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Permalink Reply by luggnutz on June 22, 2010 at 2:14pm

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/21/roundup-weeds-resista...
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Roundup-resistant weeds pose threat
Last Updated: Monday, June 21, 2010 | 11:41 AM ET Comments34Recommend20The Associated Press
When the weed killer Roundup was introduced in the 1970s, it proved it could kill nearly any plant, while still being safer than many other herbicides, and it allowed farmers to give up harsher chemicals and reduce tilling that can contribute to erosion.
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But 24 years later, a few sturdy species of weed resistant to Roundup have evolved, and that's forcing farmers to return to some of the less environmentally safe practices they abandoned decades ago.
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The situation is the worst in the southern U.S., where some farmers now walk fields with hoes, killing weeds in a way their great-grandfathers were happy to leave behind. And the problem is spreading quickly across the Corn Belt and beyond, with Roundup now proving unreliable in killing at least 10 weed species in at least 22 states. Some species, like Palmer amaranth in Arkansas and water hemp and marestail in Illinois, grow fast and big, producing tens of thousands of seeds.
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"It's getting to be a big deal," said Mike Plumer, a 61-year-old farmer and University of Illinois agronomist who grows soybeans and cotton near the southern Illinois community of Creal Springs. "If you've got it, it's a real big deal."
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We believe that glyphosate will remain an important tool in the farmers' arsenal," Monsanto spokesman John Combest said.
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That said, the company has started paying cotton farmers $12 an acre to cover the cost of other herbicides to use alongside Roundup to boost its effectiveness.
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Bad news
The trend has confirmed some food safety groups' belief that biotechnology won't reduce the use of chemicals in the long run.
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"That's being reversed," said Bill Freese, a chemist with the Washington, D.C.-based Center For Food Safety, which promotes organic agriculture. "They're going to dramatically increase use of those chemicals, and that's bad news."
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The first weeds in the U.S. that survived Roundup were found about 10 years ago in Delaware.