On 29/05/2012 21:28, Billy wrote:
In ,
Jeff wrote:
On 29/05/2012 09:48, weh100 wrote:
Hi, I have just purchased a house which has been uninhabited for many
years hence the garden is a mess. the biggest issue seems to be the
bindweed which is nearly everywhere and the soil is pretty much made up
of the roots of this. I have read plenty of threads on how to take out
bindweed but much of this is related to protecting nearby plants an
issue I do not have yet. is there a cluster bomb approach to taking out
this weed? is there any other advice on what I should do to get the soil
in a better state ready for planting prob early next year? or any other
hints and tips when you have a completely bank canvas?
I understand some q's are a bit open ended but any help appreciated.
You could nuke everything by spraying glyphosate (Roundup, Tumbleweed)
over it all, but that would kill anything under the bindweed which you
can't see, and might want.
If you feel that you have to use glyphosate, paint it on to reduce its
environmental impact.
Painting it may not be an option if the area is large, but it would
certainly make sense for a few plants.
And of course, the ubiquitous use of glyphosate is leading to the
ubiquitous development of glyphosate resistant weeds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/bu...ent/04weed.htm
l?pagewanted=all
That is sad, but not unexpected. But it has taken over 20 years for
resistance to develop. This is from:
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static...ef_final.pd f
"It also allows weeds that already have a natural resistance to
glyphosate to thrive in fields with herbicide-resistant crops.
Eventually, repeated use will render glyphosate ineffective. To limit
the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, farmers of
herbicide-resistant crops should incorporate more diverse management
practices, such as herbicide rotation and tank-mixes of more than one
herbicide." In any population there will always be weeds resistant to
something. If that something is used exclusively, those weeds will
prevail over all others. It's not an inherent fault with glyphosate.
If any new herbicide is developed, it will eventually fall foul of that
one resistant plant in the same way that glyphosate has done. I'm
afraid we can't do much about natural selection!
I would not be at all surprised if it is found that the resistance is
also due to inadequate levels of glyphosate being used (ie the applied
solution has either been overdiluted to save money, or some of the
generic concentrate being sold was not of the strength stated on the
label). That would make resistance inevitable, in the same way that
antibiotic resistance has become a major problem since patients stopped
taking an antibiotic as soon as they felt well.
Don Huber, recently retired from Purdue University, and co-author G.S.
Johal, at Purdue¹s Dept of Botany and Plant Pathology, stated in a paper
published in the October 2009 issue of European Journal of Agronomy that
the widespread use of glyphosate in the US can ³significantly increase
the severity of various plants diseases, impair plant defense to
pathogens and diseases, and immobilize soil and plant nutrients
rendering them unavailable for plant use.²
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/glyphosatePoisonsCrops.php
Looking at the Isis website I get the same impression of the
independence of papers they publish as I would if Monsanto published
papers and declared they were from a non-commercial organisation.
Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human
Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx800218n
Interesting, but I don't have access to read the full paper or the
replies to it.
Glyphosate and Cancer
http://asgap.org.au/APOL20/dec00-3.html
A paper much more balanced than its title would suggest! Perhaps most
pertinent is the author's comment "But the numbers are very small: one
case more or less would make a big difference. The researchers quite
properly write that glyphosate "might be of concern" (italics mine).
They go on to say it deserves further study; and who could disagree. But
this seems to me to be rather a long way from much of the sensational
reporting."
What has been studied and concluded in the 11 years since the article
was published?
--
Jeff