J Burns wrote:

Stormin Mormon wrote:

Have to try plain Roundup on one side of the yard,
then add some soap and do the other side of the yard.
Do an A versus B test. I'd like to hear how the test
works out. I do use Roundup on my weeds.

Why do you have your line-length set to 50-odd characters instead of,
say, 72?

Regarding roundup, the only place I use that is in my parkinglot at
$dayjob and on the road in front of my house (in the cracks around the
curbs) or on my driveway. There is no other place where spraying
roundup in my yard wouldn't kill either grass or something that my SO
would kill me for.

I looked into Roundup a few months ago so I could tell a neighbor
the shelf life. Monsanto says 6 months after mixing, and it's the
surfacant, not the glyphosate, that breaks down.

I buy Roundup in premixed 5-liter hand-pump sprayer:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PD3g7sAdL.jpg

When it's all used up, I clean it with hot water, use some lacquer
thinner to wipe away the painted-on label, and use it as a sprayer for
Ortho weed-b-gon.

The Roundup I buy in that 5-liter ready-to-use sprayer contains:

- glyphosate (present as isopropylamine salt)

preservatives
- 5-chloro-2-methyl-4-isothiazolin-3-one
- 2-methyl-4-isothiazolin-3-one

Nothing else is listed. No other chemicals, no surfactants.

Could those "preservatives" function as surfactants?

According to this:

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles...osate-ext.html

==================
Glyphosate is practically non-toxic to fish. However, Roundup was more
toxic to fish than was glyphosate. An additive used in the Roundup
formulation (modified tallow amine used as a surfactant) is apparently
more toxic to fish than many common surfactants. For this reason, the
formulation for use in aquatic situations (Rodeo) omits this
ingredient. The surfactant is used to allow the compound to readily
dissolve in solution and to keep the compound from balling up on the
leaf surface.
===================

This is wikipedia's page for polyethoxylated tallow amine surfactants:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyeth...d_tallow_amine

===============
Roundup Pro is a formulation of glyphosate that contains a phosphate
ester neutralized polyethoxylated tallow amine surfactant; as of 1997
there was no published information regarding the chemical differences
between the surfactant in Roundup and Roundup Pro.

The polyethoxylated tallow amine used as a surfactant in Roundup is
referred to in the literature as MON 0139 or polyoxyethyleneamine
(POEA). Presumably, the Roundup surfactant is a derivative of tallow, a
complex mixture of fat from the fatty tissue of cattle or sheep.

POEA is 15% of Roundup formulations and the phosphate ester neutralized
polyethoxylated tallow amine surfactant is 14.5% of Roundup Pro.

Surfactants are generally required to be used with glyphosate to allow
effective uptake of glyphosate, which is hydrophilic, across plant
cuticles, which are hydrophobic, and reduces the amount of glyphosate
washed off plants by rain.
===============

Does premixed Roundup available in the US contain surfactants?

I spray insecticidal soap on a few locust trees to kill aphids, and
might start mixing it with Roundup and Weed-B-Gon as an experiment.
This soap contains:

- Alkanolamine salts of fatty acids (25%)