Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Glyphosate and the environment

Pesticides should always be used by trained operators in accordance with label instructions. This will keep unintended adverse effects on non target species to a minimum

that was a good joke...
Even if you take n number of precautions but some part of the inorganic Pesticide will enter the food chain..
What do you want to acheive?

Glyphosate ("Roundup") is organic.
The main danger with glyphosate is not entering the food chain, but disrupting it by destroying native vegetation.

1) Nobody cares about farmworkers. We have an unlimited hatchery supply that transports itself to point of use.

2) The folks who mix and spray agrochemicals cannot be trusted to balance a checkbook. It isn't a vocation that attracts intellectuals.

3) Glyphosate's major Enviro-whiner side effect is to cure malaria,

http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/1998/19980625-shikimate-path.html
http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2005Mar/Soundbitemolecules.asp

Who would want that?

Compared with all the systemic contact herbicides used before roundup, it is a saint. Actually a salt that breaks down to organics when it contacts the dirt. And the LD50 is way up there.

I use a blue dye to prevent over spray and contact. Also it's generic now at half the price.

I could not run my garden business without it, but it's greatest benefit is maintaining good soil structure by allowing no-till farming.

It's an organophosphate, which is, indeed, a salt. It is also organic - whether it contacts soil or not.
Here's a timely article:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20050704001701data_trunc_sys.shtml

Notice that it's the surfactant in Roundup - and not glyphosate itself - that is implicated.

Glyphosate on Poison Ivy =

hmmm...
so we have a case of a compound affecting the soil and its byproducts...
All I can say is take care of the health of Diversity.. Destroying natural vegetation is not a good thing..I come from Business and I know the importance of Diversity...
Diversity is the acknowldege of the fact that an infinite vertical can not be created to control destiny of human population. But yes what can be achived is a hierarchical distribution of many verticals with money ,power and knowldege...
I am a sceince freak and I think Politics and Business can not escape from my knowldege...

You have apparently never experienced the effects of intimate contact with Rhus toxicodendron. Poison ivy is one mean plant and I for one wouldn't miss it if it went extinct. Same goes for poison oak and poison sumac. Stick to business where you understand the dangers; let farmers and homeowners kill all the poison ivy they can in their own self interests, and biodiversity be damned.

I like the blue dye idea; I may have to try that one. The stump killer I use, Tordon, has a blue color in it, so I guess I'd choose another color, but I like the idea. Thanks!

The product is called "turf mark" by becker underwood 515-232-5097 , www.bucolor.com

A note on poison ivy: best result when sprayed befor berries form, and because it is more woody than herbatious, use dobble or triple consentration, ie with 41%consentrate,use up to 8 oz/gal

And at full undeluted 41% is a great stump killer, if applied at the time tree is cut

if you an idea generates hate in you then its your problem ...
The physical existence is just an expression of an abstarct idea..
And the Idea has no religion .... a good idea can turn bad and a bad idea can turn good depending upon its usage .....
Its our fault if we have not found its usage.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I just have a small operation, a little over half a city block, but it's surprising how fast poison Ivy takes root. I buy the premixed stuff, it comes with a sprayer, but I may go to concentrate once the gallon is used. I'm not fond of the sprayer, as repetitive motion, i.e., squeezing, triggers my arthritis. But in the interest of freedom from the big P.I., I'll endure the suffering.