La Puce wrote:
Chris Bacon wrote:
"Oh yes I have!".
It does not say the "toxic cloud" was glyphosphate.

What does it says then, perhaps it was a toxic cloud of custard?

On the basis of the article that you have cited and given the
toxicology of the various active compounds involved it seems most
likely that the toxic cloud was a mixture of paraquat and atrazine
(both nasty toxic compounds) and any other old cheap and nasty generic
broad spectrum weedkillers the landowners had lying around.

They were almost certainly tryng to kill glyphosate resistant weeds.
Glyphosate resistance being one of the main threats to this short
sighted Roundup(TM) ready GM lazy farmer tactic.

GM
farming uses intensive use of herbicides. If you want to be silly with
me, then so be it but I will not carry on the conversation. But if
you're not I just hope I will make change your mind in the use of
chemicals.

Glyphosate itself in pure form is about as toxic as caffeine in coffee.
I would be more worried about the surfactants.

I am no fan of Roundup Ready GM produce because it encourages farmers
to be lazy and then hit crops with an overdose of herbicide. But the
glyphosate is almost certainly blameless in this particular instance.

In Colonia Loma Senes they saw a toxic cloud made out of herbicides.
The herbicides they use has glyphosate, altrazine, picloram etc. mix.

Not all synthetic chemicals are bad. Glyphosate is astonishingly benign
in mammals considering how absolutely deadly it is to green plants.
Derivatives of it are also very deadly to the malaria parasite and are
being screened for that application too.

Glyphosate is the active killing ingredient in numerous proprietary
pesticides that British amateur gardeners keep bying for their nice
green lawn which includes:- ROUNDUP, EAZY WEEDER, SLAM grass and weed
killer, ZERO weed spray and wand, COMKILL, SQUADRON, TILLMASTER,
TUMBLEWEED, etc. as explained to Judith a couple of days ago. (source
Paula).

This is complete and utter ********. Only the terminally stupid would
apply glyphosate to a lawn. Grass is exquisitely sensitive to the
effects of glyphosate at a level where if you walk over a lawn with
boots that are wet with glyphosate overspray every footfall will show
in outline of dead grass (or worse if you had it on the soles of the
boots).

Broadleaf specific lawn weedkillers are much nastier than glyphosate
but are just about acceptable for spot weeding. I cringe everytime I
see that blasted animated frog/hedgehog/ladybird dance around on the
chemically greened lawn advert.

We are getting almost as bad as the Merkins - a land where "TruGreen
ChemLawn" is a product franchise brandname and a *selling* point. I kid
you not.

Don't buy these products. Full stop.

If you must use a chemical weedkiller then glyphosate is about as safe
as you can reasonbly get. All I would ask is that you buy generic and
not the Monsanto product.

Almost everything else is more dangerous. Even grubbing the weeds out
manually by hand risks catching tetanus from the soil. And burning them
OrganicallyTM) will produce dangerous dioxins (shock! horror!). There
is no free lunch.

Regards,
Martin Brown