roundup is bad for your guts

Here is a volume you might have missed:
http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/monsantocorn.asp

I stand corrected, www,snopes.com does dispel GMO myths.
For someone latching onto an article that warns us about ZOMBIE WHEAT, don't too snooty about snopes.

Tilling the soil really doesnt hurt it. Its been done that way for centuries. First you plow the field, then drag a heavy wooden beam over it to bust of the big clods, then run over it again with a harrow to prepare a seed bed. Next you plant, then get in there once a week and cultivate, go back in with a hoe to cut out the weeds between the individual plants. cultivate again to kill the weeds twixt the rows and one more time by hand. Of course this only works with row crops, not so well with grains which are way to thick for rows. It also involves about 10 trips over the field with equipment and a couple times on foot. But hey, fuel is cheap and time has no value whatsoever. Around here farmers go across their fields exactly one time in the spring... spraying that nasty roundup as they go, adding fertilizer and planting the seeds all in one fell swoop. They come back in the fall, harvest a weed free crop and let all that organic matter (corn stalks, soy bean vines etc) fall back on the field to naturally decompose and build the soil. According to them they are saving both time, and huge amounts of money in fuel and equipment, plus combatting soil erosion by using this new fangled "no till" process. Just because they are getting a 50 percent higher yield with half the expense... I just cant see how they are coming up ahead of the game. Grain farmers should be letting half their land lay fallow to two years and go over it with rod weeders to keep weeds under control so there will be no weed seed to germinate on that third years when they do plow, drag, fertilize, harrow and plant. After all whats a few weed seeds in our bread wheat? Even if it does cost twice as much to produce a half a crop? Its not like they are competing with anyone else for a market share.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Anyone who thinks we farmers are wrecking the earth going to chime in on how it should be done, or??????

What should we be doing? I really am curious. The silence is deafening. The silence is well, quite telling. Like me actually, if someone told me to give a medical diagnosis on a sick individual. I would be unsure what to say as well, because I really have no idea about most things in medicine. I leave it to the experts. The experts who use the tools at their disposal, including gm medications. Including chemicals which make life more livable for us all.

Most of us do not even blink when told by a doctor to take a certain medication that will make us well. A medication that is made of "gasp" CHEMICALS!!!! We injest the medicine directly into our gullets. Yet a farmer may spray a couple ounces of herbicide on an acre of land (2 000 000 pounds of soil in the top six inches), to control weeds, and the consumers panic. They have no idea what actually happens to herbicides, what rate it is applied, how poisonous they are: But by gum those farmers are feeding us poisons, dangit!

Sure, I can google and find fault with the doctors' tools. The internet is like that. But I trust and appreciate them for what they do to make humankind healthier, safer. I respect their choices in how they go about their business, because they have studied their business, and know what they are doing for the most part. There are quacks out there, extolling the virtues of untested, "natural" medicine.

Deafening is the silence regarding my simple question, but really quite understandable. I too am less than expert in many fields. Without trying to sound smug, however, I consider myself an expert as a farmer. Like a teacher would consider themselves a highly certified, trained individual. Like a nurse, a Policeman, a plumber. I have studied in university, in the field, in my easy chair. I have done on farm trials, learned my soil, rebuilt my soil that had been wrecked, mined, and worn out by "organic" farming methods.

I am all ears, though, for ideas on how to do this career better. Let me know what I should be doing to farm cleaner, more efficiently, greener.

Cheers,

Dale

Farmer dale, your post is peppered with words which seem like you're itching for a fight. You'll get none from me so stop reading if you want.

I'm no farmer but I know that organic farming is not feasible on a large scale. Long ago when each family had a farm and provided for themselves, it worked. Organic bread and items made with organic flour are more expensive due to the smaller crop size and added expense and labor. I pay for it, gladly. I cut back in other ways to afford it.

If I had to grow wheat myself, I imagine a type (if one exists) would be one with a big root system and a short stem. I don't know if there's such a thing as an old heritage type wheat but I imagine that would do better with an organic method?

Editing to add- we were typing at the same time so the silence you thought you heard was actually me clicking away. and I don't believe in telling anyone how to do their job better. Read my posts..I vote with my wallet. To each their own.

And you realize your attempt to discredit her opinion is pathetic ? She quotes a song that was written before you people used Round Up as salad dressing...ignoring the sentiment. Tit for tat - she doesn't want crap on her food. Period.

It gets better. Soon you'll be getting nasty messages in your inbox and the threads will still be all "cheers" and "gosh golly gee I just don't know why you're so hostile". Next thing you know you'll be written off as delusional. All because you don't sip the Round Up or crawl back in your corner.

So sharing is "latching" on?

You should go back and read about the washed up Clinton supporting Snopes folks. You need to brush up on your sources. Or maybe from an independent thought. Buying into hype in the internet is delusional at best.

Oh yep, "big yellow taxi" is the song. Originally sung by Joni Mitchell but also by counting crows. Sorry if that was confusing. You can look up the full lyrics. I often think of it when I'm at the farmers market eyeing the perfectly imperfect organic apples.

To each their own precisely. My post is not aimed to start a fight, my post is aimed at making us all think harder. Thanks for your input!

We share that desire. I don't want crap or chemicals on my food. It matters not that it is a quote from a song, it is at best misleading.
Strange that the vinegar you use on your salad is more toxic than what comes out of my monster spraying machine.
Sentiment is for funerals, this is a discussion and it works best when facts are used.
Don't call me pathetic and then complain when someone has a tone you don't like. Look who sounds like "itching for a fight". Come on, keep it civil.

If you are talking about me, what you are saying is false. If you are talking about someone else, kindly disregard. For what it's worth, I am sorry if someone sends you nasty private messages. That is uncalled for.

I do not sip roundup, and would not really recommend it. I do wish to have dialogue.

If my post was threatening, condescending, cruel; It was not meant to be. I just think if I as a farmer am so dirty, so nasty, and so poisonous, explanations are in order as to why. And please, offer suggestions on farming methods that are greener than what I practice. That is what my posts are hoping for.

I've been doing some research on einkorn wheat because I have weird issues with gluten and apparently this has a different makeup that makes it easier to digest. It's supposedly an old wheat and I wonder how that would fare on a large scale grown with organic methods?

I am as civil as they come until backed into a corner. Having fingers wagged in my face about needing the "brush up" on info, provide a source you approve of only (while you rely on the likes of Snopes), being called delusional, being stalked because I don't back down like you people have forced others to do, lies about being a high school drop out spread, being called a child abuser because I don't sit down and shut up ... the list doesn't end.

You, sparky, have ZERO place to tell ME to keep it civil. You would know civil if it slapped you upside the head.

Am I sparky or what? I feel like I missed something? lol!

"Long ago when each family had a farm and provided for themselves, it worked."

Sort of. But the reality is that our farmers were growing crops on new fields. Land that had either thousands of years of forest decay or tons of decomposing prairie grasses. So when their farming methods caused tons of top soil to wash away, it didn't matter. There were few choices. It was not sustainable agriculture, far from it.

"If I had to grow wheat myself, I imagine a type (if one exists) would be one with a big root system and a short stem. I don't know if there's such a thing as an old heritage type wheat but I imagine that would do better with an organic method?"

If there were a demand for a shorter wheat, one could be bred. Shorter wheat would be less susceptible to being blown down (lodging), but would be less able to suppress weeds by limiting the sunlight that weeds need. A larger root system might be superior in a drought, but couldn't increase grain production if extra nutrients were needed to supply the super sized root system. An organic method would need to supply the nutrient demands of a crop. Generally, compost only adds decaying plant matter and very limited amounts of the three basic nutrient needs, NPK. Compost increases the soils ability to hold water, improving growth, but a yield still demands adequate amounts of NPK.

I am sorry that you were abused, verbally or whatever. Must have been difficult, But when I engage in a discussion, I am not all those people from your sad and difficult past. I'm just a person trying to have a discussion.

I have a friend who grows organic einkorn. It is indeed an ancient wheat like grain. I have an old jar of wheat from the 1950's my dad had kept. I really do need to grow some of it and try to multiply it. A goal of mine is to try a "heritage" wheat in a side by side, replicated, field scale trial, to see how these old wheats may perform under more modern farming methods and vice versa. Maybe I then can sell this wheat as a "heritage" grain, for three times the price!!! lol.

Typically in small grains, and indeed with my friend, she uses a LOT of tillage and burns A LOT of diesel to grow organic crops on a medium to large scale. She mostly relies on summerfallow, that is, leaving the land idle for a year, to control some weeds, and to break down organic matter which in turn provides some nutrients. In the spring, seeding is delayed to allow a flush of early weeds, then it is tilled yet again to kill off those early weeds. After planting, a new flush of weeds come, and it is often very hard to tell what crop has been planted for the entire season because of low fertility and massive weed issues. Her yields are probably about a third of surrounding farms, and she probably gets twice the price as conventional farmers for her product.

She has much less risk in terms of financial input, because she does not spend much relatively to grow her crops. But she wonders about her future. She has such nasty weed issues after years of seeding out. Weed seeds which will be an issue for 20, 30, 60 years to come, depending on dormancy. Her soil fertility is dropping, from the inability to efficiently add nutrients. Her soil organic matter is dropping by its constant tillage and exposure to air. She burns four to five times the diesel fuel I do per acre. She loses money on expensive land the year it is left fallow. She herself does not see it as a sustainable option. We agree that the word sustainable is not attainable in reasonable scale farming.

Yes she uses forages, but so do I. Yes she uses cover crops: So do the rest of us. Sure she rotates crops, so do the rest of us. But she does not have the ability to put back into the soil all that is harvested. So her soil slowly dies.

Sorry for the novel. IMO, there is no right or wrong way to farm. There are simply misconceptions, lies, and fallacies that need to be shared about farming.

We all have our choices.

I have had good luck growing Spelt. Quite a bit like wheat. There are some ancient varieties as well as some "improved" varieties. It has gluten, but is better tolerated by some folks. Spelt has been around a long while. Mentioned in the Christian Bible. Specialty stores stock Spelt flour. If you like it you might try growing some.

So do I get an A for effort? . I have limited knowledge but feel I was *somewhat* on the right track.

Then she needs to cut down on food being sold in the average markets, and find food stores that sell nothing but organics. Or maybe grow her own, that way she will know exactly what is on it.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain