Dow Corn, Resistant to a Weed Killer, Runs Into Opposition

[groovedaddy]

To Jody Herr, it was a telltale sign that one of his tomato fields had been poisoned by 2,4-D, the powerful herbicide that was an ingredient in Agent Orange, the Vietnam War defoliant.

“The leaves had curled and the plants were kind of twisting rather than growing straight,” Mr. Herr said of the 2009 incident on his vegetable farm in Lowell, Ind. He is convinced the chemical, as well as another herbicide called dicamba, had wafted through the air from farms nearly two miles away.

Mr. Herr recalled the incident because he is concerned that the Dow Chemical company is on the verge of winning regulatory approval for corn that is genetically engineered to be immune to 2,4-D, allowing farmers to spray the chemical to kill weeds without harming the corn stalks.

That would be a welcome development for corn farmers like Brooks Hurst of Tarkio, Mo., who are coping with runaway weeds that can no longer be controlled by Roundup, the herbicide of choice for the last decade.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/energy-environment/dow-weed-killer-runs-into-opposition.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120426

[tularetom]

1. Glyphosate herbicides are no longer effective on many weeds around here

[NickB79]

2. Round-Up Ready crops were sold as a way to use LESS 2,4-D!

Farmers have used 2,4-D as a pre-planting treatment of their fields for decades, and we all know the shit is really, really bad for the environment and people. Round-Up is much less toxic to living species and breaks down faster, so it was promoted as a way to use less 2,4-D.

Now they want to go back to using MORE 2,4-D? Son of a bitch.

[Javaman]

3. In other news...

Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all

snip

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

more at link...

Monsanto Defeated by Super Weeds
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/13/monsanto-defeated-by-super-weeds.aspx

Twenty-one weed species around the world are now resistant to glyphosate, up from zero in 1996 -- the year Monsanto started marketing its genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops.

Glyphosate, now the world's bestselling weed killer and the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, is emerging as one of the most dangerous Monsanto products to date, in part because super weeds are emerging at an alarming rate.

A briefing by GM Freeze noted that in the United States, the worst-affected country (which is not surprising since the U.S. also leads the world in GM crop acreage), 13 resistant weed species cover more than 11 million acres, mostly those planted with Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy, corn and cotton crops.

The weeds are not only making Monsanto's promises that their GM crops would reduce pesticide use completely laughable -- since farmers are being forced to use multiple, and more, pesticides to keep weeds in their GM crops under control -- but also are turning out to be a very big thorn in Monsanto's proverbial side; one that ironically might turn out to threaten the very GM crops that created them.

more at link...