JONA878
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I agree in an ideal world it would be lovely to return to slash and till methods of food production.
There are a few very disturbing figures that bode no good for the future if we pretend that we can produce enough food for all by using such methods alone.

In the last 40 years we have lost a third of all agricultural land in the world through various reasons.
There are between 1 and 2 billion people already on the undernourished list.
By the end of the century it is estimated that in Africa alone 184 million people will die through famine and disease caused by drought and loss of land.

We in the richer nations live in a world that is cushioned from the harsh realities of true hunger. We can afford at present to ignore the plight of many as we in fact have over production of many food crops.
Allready though huge amounts of food crop land is being removed to grow Bio-fuel crops and as oil production decreases more and more will surely go the same way.

It's a huge and disturbing problem for the next generations to tackle and I believe that all avenues have to looked at.

Jona.

milifestyle
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Using weeds to increase soil fertility will increase output from food crops. Theres a lot more available plant food in decaying "living weeds" than in decaying "dead weeds".

Millions of tonnes of animal and human waste gets flushed away every year. Theres is huge potential for converting this waste into plant food and soil conditioner.

My first job in the organic field was removing broadleaf dock, capeweed and blackberry from a 10 acre (in-conversion) property - By Hand. Took me 15 weeks. Hard work. But the most rewarding 15 weeks work I've ever done.

Bio-Fuel is a good idea, but it should be a by-product from the food industry, not a stand alone crop... surely our scientists are smarter than that - we pay them well enough.

If we had a "life attitude" instead of a "kill attitude", we'd have natural oasis' all over the world.

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rootsy
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Unfortunately the masses have driven chemical use in ag to a large degree... We seem to demand cheap food... We demand that all of our produce be picture perfect with zero imperfections when browsing at wally world... Maybe not one or two people reading this but the balance of the 300 million others in this country do...

On large scale... Weed and pest control, as I've stated before, is impossible when you're growing a thousand acres of something. Any weed pressure at all will significantly diminish yields... Pests can decimate certain crops.. whether that is corn borer or ear worm in dent and sweet corn or aphids in soybeans.

Farming is a business and farmers are in it #1 as a way of life and #2 to make a living... I don't know a single farmer that does not take chemical application quite seriously, me included, if I must use any...

This isn't the early / mid 20th century where farms were on a much smaller scale and a farmer could make a living off of 80 acres a year and micro manage every square foot with manual tillage. Those days are long gone. The only way to make a go of it and see a good return on investment is to have a lot of acreage. At least in cash crop farming (dent corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat).

Chemicals of today are 100X more safe than chemicals of the last century too... In fact you'll be hard pressed to find chemicals that were available in the mid to late 20th century. If you do I can almost guarantee the USDA will have forbid their use...

milifestyle
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Hi rootsy,

2,4D is still a common Herbicide, even more common than Glyphosate in some countries. MCPA, more common in most countries, is from the same phenoxy group. Granted, MCPA is a milder form of 2,4D but its accumulative effects have not been fully studied. There is still little research available on the Bio-Magnification properties of MCPA.

In many cases any pro-use research that has been undertaken has been funded by either the manufacturer or a 3rd party connected with a positive outcome from the products use.

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rootsy
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milifestyle wrote:Hi rootsy,

2,4D is still a common Herbicide, even more common than Glyphosate in some countries. MCPA, more common in most countries, is from the same phenoxy group. Granted, MCPA is a milder form of 2,4D but its accumulative effects have not been fully studied. There is still little research available on the Bio-Magnification properties of MCPA.

In many cases any pro-use research that has been undertaken has been funded by either the manufacturer or a 3rd party connected with a positive outcome from the products use.
Yep 2,4D is still quite common. It is also under attack and aside from professional use is probably going to disappear within the next few years.

There is a reason why most chemicals are RUPs....

JONA878
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In many cases any pro-use research that has been undertaken has been funded by either the manufacturer or a 3rd party connected with a positive outcome from the products use

This is where the trouble begins.
It should not be in the hands of chemical companies to have the power to geneticaly breed plants to be resistant to a particular chemical.
This should be the remit of Research Stations that are goverment funded with the results available to all..
Trouble is that world wide such funding is drying up fast.

As a result much seed is produced and sold to farmers in the poorer areas of the world with the suicide gene added to stop the farmer from retaining seed for the following year from his crop.


Who gets rich with this, and who really benifits....I guess not really the farmer.

I'm with you Rootsy on the chemicals we use today.
Most farmers try to use pest/disease specific sprays although they cost far more than the old ' Kill everything ' ones.
As a result there are far more natural preditors left to protect the crops grown.
The use of Pheremone traps and other natural disturbers all contribute to a greater reduction in chemical use....but as has been said...in mono crop situations where vast areas are down to a single species of cropping then pest and disease levels are bound to warrant chemical control.

Jona.

Jona

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So Jona, isn't the hit here on monoculture? Michael Pollan thinks it's a big part of the issue. Bill McKibben thinks it supports agribusiness, the big corps, running Mom's and Pop's out by dragging prices down. Some pretty smart folks think we are doing it wrong, so why do I hear so much resistance from growers? The artisanal food movement is proving that small focused growing has a market that pays better than traditional chemically based growing, so why are farmers and growers fighting back so much?

Seems this would be a good thing for most farmers if we moved to localized food production done organically. It would only hurt the huge guys and the increased profits would help preserve farmland as open space in our communities, not just on corporate farms the size of communities, monocultural communities with limited habitat and food values for any species other than our own.

Smaller farms and diverse crop selections are the winning combo we find in CSA agriculture, the fastest growing form of agriculture and the one big agribiz is most worried about. CSA's are a win for the farmer too; he keeps all the profit that used to go to the middlemen, gets direct feedback from the end users, and best of all gets paid up front, in cash mostly, so he isn't out a big nut, gambling Mother Nature isn't going to do something wierd this year (a decreasingly attractive bet in this day and age of global warming and climate change).

But it is easier to keep growing acres and acres of corn, despite the evidence that corn is a main causal agent in America's obesity issue, using more and more fertilizers to work descreasingly fertile soils, despite the damage to waterways and oceans, and using atrazine and other chemicals despite increasing evidence of toxicities we hadn't even thought about yet, let alone tested for.

For instance (he said, trying to bring this back to point), there have been a number of pros on this thread assuring everyone how harmless glyphosate is. Oh, I agree that next to some of the other junk it isn't too bad, but some of my professional colleagues, in their rush to assure everyone of the safety of this stuff, say no one has ever done a study that shows that glyphosate is harmful. I would say they were wrong there. Here's one that finds it actually [url=https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx800218n]kills embryonic and placental cells[/url]; this research done after an epidemiological study of Ontario farming populations showed that exposure to glyphosate nearly doubled the risk of late miscarriages. As for low soil residuals, why sure it's low there; it's rinsing into water where it can have a three month life span before it starts to break down, and have we mentioned yet that it is [url=https://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/2005/Roundup-Amphibians-Community1jul05.htm]quite deadly to amphibian populations[/url], knocking juvenile populations back by 40%?

And the manufacturer's claims of quick breakdown in soils? Truish (it appears [url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC183471/]rhizobacters do break it down[/url]without ill effect to the soil biology), but misleading... what does it break down to? The first big break down is an amide called [url=https://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/2005/Roundup-Amphibians-Community1jul05.htm]Sarcosine[/url]. This is one of the toxins that they have been trying to get out of circulation for years, it forms a [url=https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html]nitrosamine[/url], a group that has been linked to cancer for fifty years, with 90% of them being found to be carcinogens, yet they are still found everywhere, from make-up to pesticides.

Why? I don't know. Ask the myriad industry groups that have spent millions to block research and legislation; maybe they do.

Why do we need to find data like this in places like [url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XdBe64fAsiwC&dq=glyphosate,+Seralini,+miscarriages&source=gbs_navlinks_s]these[/url]? Why weren't these stories reported? I don't know. Ask the newspaper owners and TV moguls, all three of them. It seems that the best interests of big business have more money to throw at the "science" (read PR) on this than little guys like me sqwauking away on our little website. What a suprise... :roll:

Recombinant testing with pesticides is still not required; our sarcosine recombines with natural soil composition to form nitrosamine, seems even our organic pyrethrins can be deadlier when combined with sunscreen ingredients (makes the skin more permeable)? Why no testing? And why no law like Europe, that says you must prove the chemical harmless? Instead people with no money or support are forced to prove a chemical harmful before we pull it from the shelf! Why is that? I don't know; ask the folks at EPA... :roll:

Why is business and profit more important than human health? Or the health of ecosystems we are part of? Why are humans more important than the rest of species combined? Joseph Cambell once said the great question of the 21st Century would be whether mankind served humanity or The Machine. I think this is exactly the sort of thing he was talking about, and I think it's finally crunch time. Professionals have been just as bamboozled as the public, fed a line from companies that know better to keep the bottom line black, and to h*** with everything else, but you can find the truth if you really want to find it. I encourage everyone, but ESPECIALLY professionals to investigate further. Believe me, I have just showed you the tip of the tip of the iceberg...

Don't take my word or anyone elses...DIG!

HG

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gixxerific
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Great thread. I don't use roundup and have no weeds, at least in my small garden. I kill them organically with mulch. :P

That's all, just wanted to subscribe, last time I posted (I believe it was in this thread) it was deleted and I got another strike closer to being banned. :oops:

MaryDel
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I suspect someone at the site has an environmentalist agenda, and that is the reason that these type of threads (anti non organic gardening threads) are not kept in the Organic Gardening section where they belong.

Bashing others for using legal products fosters a great sense of community :roll: :roll: :roll:

Pathetic

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MD, we don't bash here, we just try to inform. It is legal to smoke, drink, and gamble as well, yet we still feel it is best not to do these things in anything other than minimal quantities :lol: .

Take smoking. We know it causes cancer, it has been identified as a health concern for five decades for any of a dozen other concerns besides, yet it is still legal. It wasn't until the connections to second hand smoke began to surface in just the past few years that a real concerted governmental effort was made to start abolishing smoking. The why is very clear; the tobacco industry was allowed to derail regulation for decades; the government was complicit in the continuance of this deadly health hazard by it's inaction in the face of huge payouts to campaign funds. (In an interesting and ironic side note, many of the worst toxins in tobacco, like arsenic, are present only because of the long term use of lead arsenate and other pesticides still contaminating tobacco fields decades later...).

So your assumption of legality as a measure of safety or sound environmental use is seriously misplaced; the government is the last place to look for help from a corporate driven health hazard. Let the record show that it takes fifty years to get to the right answers...

We at THG have taken it upon ourselves to at least continue the conversation on these chemicals. Corporate entities that are driven only by bottom line rather than health or environmental concerns make poor decisions; we have a Gulf full of oil to prove that out in a most immediate way. We do not bash those who wish to continue their support of these corporations or endanger their lives with these untested toxins. We just try to inform them so they might make better decisions. We are simply leading horses to water; we are most awware of our inability to make them drink...

Again, don't take our word for it, people; do your homework!

HG

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Alan in Vermont
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I think I'm pretty much middle of the road as far as chemical use/tolerance. IMHO I see more comments that are rabidly (might be the wrong choice of words but it was the most appropriate that came quickly to mind) opposed to chemical use than I do From members who are more like myself or (gasp) proponents of liberal chemical use.

I sometimes wonder just how many "antis" (that is not meant to be derogatory, typing with 1.2 hands so this makes it easier) have experience with more than a 32 sq. ft. bed and a book written by another anti. At any rate, bear with me a bit, I'm having a little trouble trying to put my thoughts on a very large issue into the short form for here.

My own background includes family history and friends in the dairy industry in the NE, not a lot of similarity with huge grain acreage but some of the mindset runs pretty close.

Some of the ag practices of today can be traced back to the "dustbowl" era. Excellent cropland being cultivated in areas where there were no natural windbreaks. By and large small farms but a lot of them, grouped together, covering a lot of area. Soil was plowed and harrowed every year, then cultivated through the growing season to suppress weed growth. A lot of it fall plowed, providing perfectly bare soil for the wind to grab.

Throw in a drought and we got a disaster. Hard times hit everyone involved in agriculture until the rains came again. A lot of good land no longer had any occupants, the last ones having bailed out, leaving their broken dreams behind.

One of the things that was done to prevent a recurrence was to plant vegetation in strips around the fields. Primarily trees and shrub type plants these windbreaks delineated small fields. With water the crops could grow again.

One constant in agriculture is the almost obsessive need to expand. One small landowner is able to buy out a neighbor due to death, health issues or financial problems. A lot of the farm boys who went off to war didn't come home to the farm. Some didn't come home at all, others took city jobs, unwilling to commit to the lifestyle needed of a farmer any longer. Farms get steadily bigger.

At the same time the equipment was getting bigger also. A farmer could till more acres in the same time as before. The bigger equipment was a bit clumsy working in small fields so the shelterbelts(I was fighting to remember that word earlier, it just popped into my head now) got ripped out, many small fields got converted into a few big ones.

Did the wind stop blowing or did we just forget something?

Corn used to get planted in clumps. The equipment used a wire stretched across the field to trigger the drop mechanism. "Check row" planting spaced the plants in both N-S and E-W axes. Some lucky farmer drove through the field in both axes, cultivating, probably the dullest way to spend several weeks, maybe months of summer.

Enter the early ag herbicides! Now you can plant in rows, which increases plant count. And you're not burning fuel keeping the weeds down. You can deal with more acreage again and the guy next door wants to move to town sooo,,,,.

All is wonderful,,, but now there is no vegetation left in the corn stubble to help cut the wind. Herbicides are developed for other crops than corn and more acres are left with no soil cover. How quickly we forget!

It is finally recognized that we might get the conditions to make another dustbowl. One of the things being done to deal with that(some people are planting, or advocating the planting of, shelterbelts) is no tillage farming. Planting is done in the stubble of last years crop and herbicides are used to control weeds, no freshly turned soil sits exposed for winter winds to carry it away.

Agribusiness is just the extension of the expansion of private holdings. It's not something I agree with but it is a fact of life now. When you get into bashing agribiz don't scream too loud at the executives for "corporate greed". Their job is to manage the operations of the company so that the stockholders see a return on their investments. With that said, I wonder how many here have ADM stock in your retirement portfolio?

As for finding the "truth" about chemicals and their use I pulled these two comments out of posts made earlier in this thread.
milifestyle wrote: In many cases any pro-use research that has been undertaken has been funded by either the manufacturer or a 3rd party connected with a positive outcome from the products use.
milifestyle wrote:Before agreeing with or believing any research results, make sure the research was NOT carried out by the product manufacturer or funded by an industry that supports the products use.
These happened to be made by the same member. Sorry, milifestyle, I'm not trying to pick on you.

Why is it that the antis will urge caution about information from a "Pro" orientation but offer, as recommended reading, all manner of "Con" information presenting information equally twisted to the anti point of view? I'm probably wrong but I don't remember seeing so much of that from the moderate or pro factions.

As much as anything it annoys me that I have to wade through reams of blatant propaganda in an attempt to glean any truth that might be there.

Having run across "rabid anti" in real life and getting well lectured on what is wrong with how we live I think I can offer a little advice on trying to effect change in how things are done.

The ways things are done now IS the way they are done, NOW! Right or wrong attempts to change that can be likened to a military force attacking a well dug-in enemy. I think the military use a figure of 3-4 to 1 is needed to root out the enemy. Short form is that you need numbers on your side. To get those numbers you need people converting to your beliefs. You don't get converts by insulting their intelligence with biased information or comments like "Their is no need for pasteurized milk, ram milk keeps fine in my refrigerator for 6 weeks!" It's true, it must be true, that was told to be by a rabid believer.

I could go either way. I'm gardening enough that I might be able to deal with it organically but, without some real compelling arguments, it is easier to make sparing use of the technology available.

I also pulled this out of a previous post. I don't want this to come across as attacking the poster but to me it comes across as one of those things that plays better in words than reality.
So Jona, isn't the hit here on monoculture? Michael Pollan thinks it's a big part of the issue. Bill McKibben thinks it supports agribusiness, the big corps, running Mom's and Pop's out by dragging prices down. Some pretty smart folks think we are doing it wrong, so why do I hear so much resistance from growers? The artisanal food movement is proving that small focused growing has a market that pays better than traditional chemically based growing, so why are farmers and growers fighting back so much?

Seems this would be a good thing for most farmers if we moved to localized food production done organically. It would only hurt the huge guys and the increased profits would help preserve farmland as open space in our communities, not just on corporate farms the size of communities, monocultural communities with limited habitat and food values for any species other than our own.
My first thought is whether or not those names mentioned or those "pretty smart folks" have a clue about anything real world or if it's a "great idea" they can bounce around amongst others of like "experience".

I don't like the whole monoculture concept but that just happens to be the most cost effective method at this time. Like it or not, business, whether big or small, strives for efficiency to maximize profits. Is there something different between a business trying to torn a profit or an individual trying to get the best standard of living he can out of his working hours?

The artisanal food movement is proving that if you have a sizeable enough population there will be a percentage who will, and can afford to, purchase a the higher priced of two or more similar products based on their perceived value of the more expensive. It does not indicate that everyone would jump on artisanal foods if they were more widely available. Maybe we could get all growers involved, flood the market to where prices drop to a point that nobody can make money at it.

"Localized food production" sounds nice too, and is a nice concept. I don't know the numbers but how many acres would be needed to feed the population of NYC? Take out all that is not able to produce a crop for one reason or another and you're going to have a huge semi-circle there. Just how far do you go before "localized" becomes 500, or more, miles away?

No, it would hurt more than the "huge guys". Organics cost more to produce so where would be the benefit to someone on a limited budget? If we got every acre now farmed converted to organic we might be able to feed our own population. But the cost, to everyone would be higher and there would be no shiploads of grain to send to others.

I could be wrong but I think it is better to be comfortably fed with the "bad" food we are now growing than to be hungry while living on an inadequate supply of those wonderful-for-us organics.

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rainbowgardener
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Alan, thanks for taking the time to write out a such a thoughtful post.

I absolutely agree that sometimes figuring out "the truth" (to the extent that there is any such thing) is difficult, because each source has their own prejudices, blinders, axes to grind, etc.

I've been discussing some of these same questions in this thread:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=157592&highlight=yeild+yield+organic+agriculture#157592

I firmly believe that moving to more organic/ natural agriculture, while it might require more labor from more people (I don't think necessarily a bad thing), does not have to reduce yields and at least in some circumstances may increase them. Cities can go a long way towards feeding themselves with more backyard and vacant lot gardens and rooftop gardens (which provide other benefits, keeping the buildings cooler, etc). My son lives in very urban Oakland, CA, across the bay from SanFrancisco, in a 8 story apt building, with rooftop garden and composting.

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Lots to support RBG's suspicions on polyculture and organic methodsa not being decreases in production, but actually increasing yield per acre. Expansion is NOT a necessity if you are willing to make adjustments to growing technique; polyculture allows for 50% higher yields if you are adding just one more crop, let alone if you bring many crops together. While it does make the food production more labor intensive, in a day and age of increased unemployment, more work would make sense to me... (for instance, a polyculture of purselane with your corn example would make the corn more productive, grow another food crop that acted as a green mulch, retaining soil moisture and tilth, and could be left in place, allowing for true no till without competition from bigger weeds).

Ah, but that means more expense for food, doesn't it? There is the real problem; not decreased food but increased cost. THAT seems to be the real sticking point. Here in the U.S. we enjoy the lowest per capita food expenditure in the world (as percentage of personal income). Most places in the world are averaging fifty percent expenditure on food; we are around sixteen percent. That artisanal food IS more expensive than the monocultural ADM/Cargill stuff. Or is it?

What has this bounty of cheap food brought us? Obesity at epidemic proportion (now the leading cause of disease and mortality in the U.S.), the new RUR crops that were going to decrease pesticide use are showing a tripling of usage (and that ain't among backyard farmers, either, Alan). We have increasing dead zones in our coastal areas, decreasing their ability to feed us (lobster yields are down again in my Long Island Sound this year, but that is more lawn ferts than agriculture. Still...) What are the unseen costs here? Not even unseen really, just ignored...

As for the bias to one side or the other on scientific data for chemical toxicities, places like the U.N. and U.S. government are starting to do testing and reaching new conclusions as to safety; expect to see more and more stuff coming off the shelf. The corporate control of scintific data is starting to shift as new scientists come to the fore, more concerned for environment than getting that cushy job with Monsanto or Dow.

I have not forsaken all things chemical completely; there are times when judicious use of a chemical is the best answer to a given problem. But it should be the answer of last resort, an emergency fall-back, not prophylitic spreading on your lawn four times a year just because MAYBE there might be an issue, or blasting away at "weeds" because we haven't bothered to ascertain WHY that plant is growing there or what values it might have for us (I have eaten a good deal of lambsquarters this year and like them better and better; who knew?).

We simply need to keep discussing this topic; to keep adjusting to new data and new ideas, and maintaining a good dialogue from both sides of the topic. Thank you Alan, for a reasoned and reasonable post; we may not see completely eye to eye but you raise some excellent points as to how the discourse should progress, and I will take those to heart.

HG

Mr green
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New studies about the Co-formulants of round-up that is now know to be endocrine disruptors.
Link to an article about it that also has the link to the study: https://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news ... disruptors

So now people cant claim round-up is safe due to the main ingredient being safe (wich its sure is not) heres more evidence of the dangers this chemical soup holds.

Also I'm happy to have read that the state of LOVELY California is gonna label Round-Up with "Known to cause cancer"
Also read that Monsatan´s economy is really falling apart very good.

Very good development!!! I'm happy with it.

Mr green
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A very good documentary about this dangerous chemical:

imafan26
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Iteresting discussion.People are very passionate about their views. I did some looking around the web.
About Round Up being banned
It is true it is banned by Germany, France, Switzerland, and Brazil (might be more that I did not see). Ostensibly because it may cause cancer. So, does sugar, cigarettes (actually not only may but does), charcoal, peanut butter, and a few other things like breathing the air, but most of these things have not been banned or taken off the market, yet.

Round Up is toxic
Well, yes, what good would it be if it wasn't.

Roundup is bad for the environment. It probably is, but not as bad as some of the alternatives like 2,4,D. Glyphosate is not as bad as some of the additives that extend it.

As has already been mentioned if the safety precautions and the product is used according to the label, the risk is minimal.

In the end it is going to be a matter of personal choice. If you want to be really organic, then you pull the weeds or use vinegar (which is not good for the soil either).

If you have tried pulling and digging, some weeds are just hard to stop any other way. The same is true if you have a big weed problem and/or a lot of area to cover and it would be hard to get it under control without a lot of time, labor and money spent to do it.

ButterflyLady29
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The problem is that the majority of users are not responsible and the combination formulas have never been tested. And since the industry is leaning heavily on glyphosate being the "safe" alternative there is little research being done on truly safer alternatives.

Admittedly poisons are necessary in some situations. I've used a few myself. I love Ortho's Grass-B-Gone which works very well on a particularly nasty type of grass we have here. But it should not have to be the final word on weed management.

And much as it's touted, glyphosate just doesn't kill some truly invasive weeds as much as people are led to believe.

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You do have to be more careful with weed B gon and some of the turf weed and seed products. They can be more persistant than roundup so you cannot compost the grass otherwise the persistent weed killers in the compost may affect any plants you apply the compost to. Composting does not get rid of most of the persistent herbicides, only time will.
Glyphosate alone does not get all weeds and it takes more than one application on some of the hardier ones. But, since you can plant a week after it is used according to the label instructions, there cannot be much persistence.

I agree most research commissioned by parties with an agenda interpret the results or design experiements to prove their point. Independent research is the best and that is why I usually look at university research rather than research done by environmental or organic groups. Even the commercial companies research is better designed. Organic sites make claims where I can easily see that they have drawn conclusions when there were too many variables that were not controlled that could lead to faulty cause effect. Some of the conclusions also admit "in small print" that there are no duplicate studies or statistically significant support for the conclusion. It is like feeding excessive amounts to rats to see if it will cause cancer. 1) you are force feeding a substance the rats would not normally consume 2) rats are used as test subjects because they are prone to cancer to start with, especially albino animals of any species 3) Rats are not people 4) People would have to be force fed a huge amount of substance that they normally would not consume to equal the amounts forced on the rats 5) Even among people genetics is probably the strongest determinent of likelihood of any disease.

Everyone is going to have their opinion and they are going to believe what they are going to believe. But, I think everyone should really reasearch both sides of the question and before taking the word of one study or another really look at the way the study was designed, who comissioned it and what was their agenda. Also look at the real world laboratory. True it takes years for some things to show up like DDT contamination, but a lot of that was also because of over use as well. Round Up has been around since the 60's. If there was any hard evidence it would likely be apparent by now. If you test the air right after the crop duster has passed over, I am sure you will find some pesticide in it. Cancer and carcinogens abound, it is easy to point fingers at almost anything and say it caused it. Really life caused it. People are exposed every day to multiple carcinogens, the biggest is probably the sun. The thinning ozone layer doesn't help and people caused that.

I agree overuse of anything can only lead to problems and we should be constantly looking for alternatives. Will they be safer? Only time will tell.

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applestar
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I came across a link to this page while web surfing, so I thought I'd post it here for future reference .... Leaves you with a lot to think about.... :| (like feed store animal feed/hay/straw does NOT look safe to use for my garden,... I'm SO GLAD I grow my own peppermint.... Etc. etc.)

eCFR — Code of Federal Regulations

https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SI ... 4&rgn=div8

e-CFR data is current as of April 29, 2016

Title 40 → Chapter I → Subchapter E → Part 180 → Subpart C → §180.364

Title 40: Protection of Environment
PART 180—TOLERANCES AND EXEMPTIONS FOR PESTICIDE CHEMICAL RESIDUES IN FOOD
Subpart C—Specific Tolerances

§180.364 Glyphosate; tolerances for residues.
(a) General. (1) Tolerances are established for residues of glyphosate, including its metabolites and degradates, in or on the commodities listed below resulting from the application of glyphosate, the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate, the ethanolamine salt of glyphosate, the dimethylamine salt of glyphosate, the ammonium salt of glyphosate, and the potassium salt of glyphosate. Compliance with the following tolerance levels is to be determined by measuring only glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine).

imafan26
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Applestar your post prooves the point that glyphosate allowable levels are still low. Most of those are degradation products. However, the anti chemical group will look at those figures and see any allowable amount as a reason not to use glyphosate. However tolerances is what the Federal govt has decided is a safe amount of residue to "do no harm" it doesn't mean those things actually exist at that level or any level in any product.

To put it in perspective take a look at this

https://mentalfloss.com/article/29133/wh ... types-food

Have you had your rodent hair today??

This I what the Fed government has to say about organic foods how it is defined and if it is safer or healthier than non-organic.
https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/docket ... e-vol1.pdf
Last edited by imafan26 on Tue May 03, 2016 12:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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applestar
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By WHY are some numbers in the hundreds and others in decimals? OK maybe you would not eat a cup of peppermint leaves at a time, but still...?

imafan26
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I have no clue. The FDA sets the standards so I guess it is that was deemed to be safe levels by whoever set the standards. It probably is like you said based on an average serving. If you don't normally use a lot it should have a lower number than something you would eat a lot of in a serving. Like a whole apple vs cinnamon.

Again these are the maximum allowable levels. Most products would try to go well below the tolerance levels.

Organic products always test lower in organophosphate contamination but even the conventional produce tests lower than the standards allow. I read that someplace, but I went through so many sources, I don't remember.

I actually was looking for an honest evaluation of contaminants in organic produce. Of course the organic people claim they don't have that much because they are held to the same standards as conventional foods. But, I have not found an organic organization study that was unbiased yet. I found some other things which the organic groups refute like higher contamination from e coli, and salmonella and other pathogens. They won't say how many bugs are allowed on organic produce. The only source I found that even came close was from a news network, and I don't use those because they are also biased.

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applestar
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Still mulling it all over. Read that article about food contaminants @Imafan. Yum! :twisted: I sent the link to DH and BIL then realized it was about 12:30PM and they were probably eating lunch :P )

I noticed this thread isn't cross-linked with this other thread, so I will add the link here:

:arrow: Subject: Please read before you spray poisons! INFO
rainbowgardener wrote:Lots more new information about glyphosate coming out, about more subtle environmental effects. […]

imafan26
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What I don't really like about the organic organizations conclusions is that the say there has been research to prove their point, but most of them do not include the actual research data and some of their statements I have found in reading the actual research material, but found that they have carved out the only the information they wanted to hear and but failed to recognize the other findings in the same study that did not support their position.

Case in point-
Organic group : research says that synthetic fertilzers kill soil microbes
What they fail to report in that same research it says that microbes die because the synthetic fertilizers feed the plants and the microbes but without carbon present the microbes die. They also fail to report that organic fertilizers yields are always lower than synthetics but by combining organic composts to improve soil tilth water holding capacity and feed the soil with synthetics yield is greater than synthetics or organics alone and the combination of synthetic fetilizers and organic components actually reduces the requirement for the synthetic fertilizers so you can get higher yields with less fertilizer.

Organic is not pesticide free although most lay people believe that they don't use any pesticides. Organic pesticides are toxic, a point that the organic people go out of their way not to report. Pyrethroids are organic but if it is mixed with petroleum products it can be extended and quite toxic to non-target animals and beneficial insects. There is a possiblility that neem may have a detrimental effect on bees. Neem contaminated pollen does not affect aldult bees but when pollen is fed to the larvae it may cause the larvae shells to become so hard, they can't emerge so the bees die.

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Gary350
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I don't know a lot about glyphosate and don't believe everything I read. Big business will do or say anything to make money. Big business had Sodium Chlorate band now people have no choice but to pay 10 times more money to people like Monsanto instead of buying a low cost produce like Sodium Chlorate that has been around for 100 years. Big business eliminates the competition then they can charge any price they want. Sodium Chlorate is made from kitchen table salt it is easy to make, mix 1 gallon of salt with 5 gallons of water, heat to a temperature hotter than 113 degrees, run 3 volts of electricity through the warm water using, carbon or tungsten or titanium electrodes for 30 hours. Spray the water on any plant it will kill it dead. Big business got sodium chlorate band by claiming it causes liver damage and kidney damage. Table salt will cause liver and kidney damage too if you eat enough of it. How do we know glyphosate is not some form of sodium chlorate with a different name companies can make up any name the like for new products.



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