look, up in the sky, its a bird, its a plane, its superweed

[Guest guest]

two things i noticed about this right off....

first...sorta teliing that they are calling herbicides " traditional " still..even

if for 99.99999% of the history of agriculture, there was no such thing as a

glyphosate...

secondly....i understand that they are trying t o grow cotton..but..pigweed is

edible....wot a waste....

 

 

SUPERWEEDS SPREADING IN GENETICALLY ENGINEERED COTTON FIELDS

Pesticide resistant weeds are introducing a new problem to cotton farmers.

Traditionally, herbicide resistance is dealt with by simply changing the

herbicide. But according to North Carolina State weed scientist Alan York,

farmers are running out of options: there are no more effective pesticides to

switch to. The majority of farmers in the Cotton Belt are now growing Monsanto's

genetically engineered Roundup Ready cotton, which is resistant to glyphosate

pesticides. As a result of the heavy use of glyphosate in the area, varieties of

pigweed have developed an immunity to it. Tests at the University of Georgia

showed that the pigweed Palmer Amaranth has developed amazing resistance to

glyphosate. Scientists doused the weeds three times with a quadruple

concentrated dose of glyphosate, but the pigweed continued to grow and multiply.

" If you grow cotton in the Southeast, and you have Palmer amaranth in your

fields, looking at side-by-side comparisons of resistant and non-resistant

pigweed should scare you to death, " York says.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/cotton060404.cfm