"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 15:43:52 -0500, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:


"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:05:57 GMT, "David Kendra"
wrote:

Another major concern from farmers that I have spoken to is the fact
that
another major crop with RR technology will interfer with weed control
strategies. They already hve RR soybeans and corn so why add aother
major crop? I for one hope RR wheat is not commercialized.

Assuming RR wheat were commercialised, and a farmer found it to
interfering with his weed control strategy, couldn't it be held
against him, that he was misusing the technology? I mean, for this
concern to truly hold water, it would have to be the case that RR
technology in wheat necessarily would interfere with weed control
strategies, that there is no room for it to be used as just another
tool.

Rememeber there is no what to keep seed truely seprate. Combines will get
in
the wrong feild, fail to be cleaned out properly or some one at the seed
cleaning plant will get the seed mixed up. There are people involed in
every
step of the system that can and do make mistakes. Combines will scatter
if
from feild to feild.

And vice versa, with other RR crops. I guess in a perverse way, each
extra RR crop could be said to limit the utility of the existing.

It is not by any means uncommon to see where a bag of the wrong kind of
wheat seed got planted in a feild at harvest.

We use wheat as a cover crop for no till Round Up Ready cotton. Some
stray
RR wheat would cause an extra spraying or mixing another herbicide in the
mix. unless it was major mix up such as a bag of RR wheat it should not
be
an economic probelm the first year if it was just left alone It would use
mositure in the spots it still lived but unless they were thick they
wouldn't be an economic problem. Any number of cheimcals other than round
up
will kill wheat.

Be careful of the trade war that is on the verge of staring between the US
and EU. The recent expansion of the EU and the intoduction of the Euro
doesn't put you on the best economic footing. There are no winners in a
trade war but one side can loose a lot worse than the other.

The anti global stance seems to be driving the green movement will hurt the
EU worse than anyone else if it succeds.

I think the RR wheat that is kinda stuck in your pipeline would be
S.wheat, as you know we do not do that very much over here. It would
be a certain sales flop :-)

Speaking our W.wheat, Roundup has already found a huge niche in the
stubble field. RR W.wheat would seem a bit misplaced, it would mean
Roundup should shift to being used during the growth season when it
could act out to the utmost its potential for environmental damage to
non target plants and trees -- and that some other herbicide, maybe
not as benign would need to take it's place in the stubbles. Perhaps
not a very good idea.
================
One of the best things about Round Up is its safty to non target plants. I
treated the weeds in my front lawn using a foam brush wet with Round Up
wiping it on the weeds leaves and the undesiable grass that sticks up above
the Bremuda grass a week ago. For years we used Round up on ordary cotton
feilds using recurlaing sprayers that sprayed horoznaly above the cotton
into a catch bin or use a wipe on roap or tube that killed weeds that grew
above the cotton. Unfortunaly weeds have done a great deal of damgae by the
time they get this size if there are very many of them.

Most of those problems can be over come by using somtheing other than
round
up to kill the wheat except where you are trying to kill in in a RR crop.
In
cotton we could add several things that should kill wheat and not hurt
cotton.

I don't think RR wheat has the market RR cotton an beans have. It has a
market where cheat grass, wild oats and a few other weed that can't be
killed in wheat by today's herbicides. But the tech fee will limit it to
those situation. That is still a good market because there are a large
number of acres of wheat and cheat and wild oats are a big problems. But
2
or 3 years of RR wheat should clean up a cheat problem. I don't know how
long it takes to clean up wild oats. I never got it done.

I may be wrong at there be a bigger market than I think there is for RR
wheat. While I see it as necessary for no till wheat I don't see
necessary
every year as it is with row crops because you don't have the same kinds
of
weed problems. There are many less weed that herbicides can't sort out
between the crop and weed in wheat. In wheat you know what kind of
chronic
weed problems you are going to have and have 2-4-D to use for broad leaf
problems that crop up in the spring.

Well, 2,4-D is long banned over here, but there are of course other
options for broad leaf control. True, it would likely be the ease of
grass weed control, which might give some attraction to RR wheat.

I can see the problems with drift in the denser population of the EU. Its
ability to volatilize a day or two after it is applied and drift is a
problem when used around growing broad leaf plants. We have a May 1 cut off
date for using 2-4-D because of damage to cotton. The cause the rule was the
state highway department. You could find effects in cotton 5 miles from the
place they sprayed it. They spray a mix on a 110 f day and the vapor floated
for miles touching down here and there. It was light enough that it didn't
appear to cause much damage.