Roundup Immune Weeds Present Environmental Threat

When the particular weed killer Roundup had been introduced in the seventies

, it proved it could eliminate almost any plant while still being less dangerous than many other herbicides, and it allowed farmers to give up harsher chemicals and reduce tilling that can contribute to erosion. But twenty-four years later, a couple of sturdy types of weed resistant to Roundup have developed, driving farmers to go back to some of the much less eco safe practices they abandoned many years ago. The problem is the worst in the South, where some farmers now walk fields with hoes, killing weeds in ways their great-grandfathers were very happy leave behind.

And the issue is spreading quickly all over the Corn Belt and beyond, with Roundup today appearing unreliable in eliminating at least ten weed species in at least 22 states. A few varieties, such as Palmer amaranth in Arkansas and water hemp as well as mare stail in Illinois, grow quick and huge, producing tens of thousands of seeds. "It is getting to be a big deal," says Mike Plumer, a 61-year-old farmer as well as University of Illinois agronomist who grows soybeans and cotton close to the southern Illinois neighborhood of Creal Springs. "If you've got it, it is a real big problem."

When Monsanto presented Roundup in 1976, "it was like the best thing since sliced up bread," said Garry Niemeyer, who grows corn and soybeans next to Auburn in central Illinois. The weed killer, identified generically as glyphosate, is absorbed by means of plants' leaves and gets rid of them by obstructing the development of proteins they need to grow. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency looks at it to possess little toxicity to people and wildlife, and besides the plants it's sprayed on, it's much less of a menace to the environment since it swiftly adheres to soil and becomes inactive.

Monsanto's introduction of seeds built to survive Roundup made matters better yet for farmers because they can apply it on emerging vegetation to wipe out the weeds growing along with them. Seed products containing Monsanto's Roundup Ready characteristics are now used to grow about 90% of the nation's soybeans and 70% of its corn and cotton. With greater reliance on Roundup, herbicide use on corn decreased from 2.76 pounds an acre in 1994 to 2.06 in 2005, the latest year for which the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides data.

Distribute that out over the 81.8 million acres grown in 2005, and it's a decline of greater than 57 million lbs of herbicides every year. Farmers also discovered they could reduce, or in most cases remove tilling, minimizing erosion and energy use. But with any herbicide, the more it is utilized, the more probable it'll encounter specific vegetation within a species which have adequate genetic deviation to endure what kills the majority of their relatives. With each generation, the survivors signify a larger percent of the species.

by: Maria Rivera

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