Do you use Roundup? Interesting article.....

I've been using RR corn and soybeans for about 5 years now. One of the best things that ever happened for us for weed control. Between roundup ready and some of the new conventional pesticides, pesticides are significantly safer than they were when I first got my applicators license, and that was only 15 years ago.

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The internet - fueling paranoia and misinformation since 1873.

If you want to see want Roundup has done just look around you. It is poison and the results have been poisonous.

2-4-D is one of the components in Agent Orange.......also from those wonderful folks at Monsanto.

2-4-D is readily available around here, no restrictions. Buy it by the gallon.
Use it on corn or oats/alfalfa just watch your dose and pick a non windy day or your corn may tip over.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

24D was an ingredient in Agent Orange, as was 245T. It wasn't these ingredients that were the basis of claims of cancers, etc. It was the contaminant dioxin that was to blame. Current formulations do not contain this dangerous chemical.
If you won't use chemicals of any kind, fine. But when we refuse to educate ourselves and react on unfounded fears, it undermines the homesteading movement.
It is easy to scoff at weed control agents when you have a garden of an acre or two, but when you start managing over 40 acres, you need to evaluate the conservation benifits of chemical application versus multiple cultivations, exposed soil, increased erosion, soil compaction and fuel dependency required in conventual cultivation.
It angers me that I cannot buy RR alfalfa. I could conserve topsoil, reduce fuel use and provide more nutrition to my livestock with RR alfalfa.
Learn how Round-up works, learn how it breaks down. Knowledge takes the "boogie man" out of the use of chemicals.

"Occupational exposure to 2,4-D has produced serious eye and skin irritation. Other symptoms of 2,4-D poisoning include nausea, weakness and fatigue, and in some cases neurotoxic effects including inflammation of nerve endings(10). Some medical reports from practitioners who have treated victims of acute exposure to 2,4-D mention severe and sometimes long lasting or even permanent symptoms. These include, as well as those listed above, diarrhoea, temporary loss of vision, respiratory tract irritation, confusion, numbness and tingling, bleeding and chemical hypersensitivity(11)."

"...the US courts decided that a forestry worker contracted cancer and died as a direct result of his exposure to 2,4-D "

"2,4-D has also been classified as an endocrine disrupter(21), and significant chromosomal damage occurred in human cells cultured in the presence of 2,4-D"

If after reading this you still want to use 2,4-D...I just don't know what to say.

http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/24d.htm

That's generally my thought on using chemicals... I don't use it unless not using it would be worse.

There is a happy medium in the use of chemicals (of any kind) on your property. I choose to use very, very little at our place and allow the natural course of things to do what it needs.

But as Blossom Girl said, sometimes you need to bring out the big guns.

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Nerds on a nano-farm - since 2005

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Please leave us Hippies out of this. Being a Hippy I must agree with you. I use Round up, when I have to. For many years we have raised poultry and many other animals with no ill effect. The kids/grandkids are just fine. That is not to say I let the animals or kids, play or get near where I have sprayed for at least a week. And for "sensitive and intelligent birds".....[/QUOTE], I have not met one yet.

Folks need to be aware that Scientific American is having problems again. I remember in the 1980s, when the magazine was chock full of great technical articles and over 200 pages per issue. Today the magazine is probably 1/4 the size of when it was in its glory. Advertisers have been leaving in droves.

The editor in chief stepped down within the past couple of months, and even in the issue with his resignation speech there was a short article on Greenland and melting ice that was so obviously incorrect and panic-spew that I was stunned. The comments had been previously disputed by a major study, and yet, that tripe made it into print.

I used to hold the magazine in high regard, but over the past year or two, it has become a mixed bag. The "Skeptic" column has become more shrill and rigid, the vetting of the articles is poor, and the magazine simply can no longer be trusted as it once was. This is truly a sad development.

Every tree in our yard is ringed with Glyphosphate twice a year. The alternative is running a weed eater ( fossil fuel ) or clipping the weeds by hand. If I did that, I would never get done.

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Dear Math, it is time you grew up and solved your own problems.

Soybeans were the 1st commercially available Roundup Ready plant. It's been well over 10 years now.

Corn, cotton, and sugar beets have also been approved for several years now. All have been in the marketplace for some time.

Alfalfa was relased was it 3 years ago; but a judge stopped that after one year, so there are still some fields of RUP alfalfa out there, but no new seed has been sold the past 2 years in the USA.

It is becoming difficult to find soybean or corn seed without the RUP trait. Sugar beets are very sensitive to most herbicides, and also are sensitive to weed competition. So it is assumed 95% of sugar beets will be RUP very soon.

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Roundup went off patent some years ago, and many companies, esp China ones, were making it very cheaply. About 3 years ago, the chemical - glysophate - was cheaper than actually sriving the sprayer through the field. It would be hard to find anything cheaper per acre to kill weeds. You could control all the weeds for $3 an acre in chemical costs. You won't find anything else cheaper! The last 2 years the price has gone up, esp last year. So it's not that cheap any more. But everything else has gone up too....

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2-4-D works well to kill broadleaves, it is not restricted use nationally. I understand it causes problems where the temperatures get real hot & humid, and there is cotten being grown? Up here in MN, it's cool in spring, you can spray 24D right next to sensitive crops and not have any problem. there is no restrictions to it.

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24D is a broadleaf killer. It typically does not kill corn, which is a grass. If the corn gets older & taller, after the growing point comes out of the ground (beyond 5 leaves or so....) then the 24D can harm tohe corn some, tho it typically does not kill corn.


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People want cheap food. Other countries need cheap food. using the roundup stuff makes food easier to grow, makes it cheaper. I'm not saying what folks should do, what they should want - I'm saying how it is. For now anyhow.


I tried some Ignite soybeans this year - they are a GMO soybean that does not get harmed by a different chemical - Ignite. It worked pretty good. Something different than Roundup, I think it is good to have different products that work. Those of you who hate Monsanto & Roundup, are you aware how all this stuff works, and that most glysophate sold is a generic type, not from Monsanto? And that other companies have different herbicide products, like Liberty Link/ Ignite stuff?

Are you just against the one company, or all of them, or only GMO ones but not regular stuff like 24D?

So often those oppsed to this stuff don't really understand what they are opposed to. It's hard to follow along then.

--->Paul

2-4-D is banned in many places around the world and most recently in Ontario and New Brunswick.

Apparently these people "don't really understand what they are opposed to."

That isn't really surprising when mass hysteria gets involved by those that don't learn for themselves, etc.

Many years ago a petition went around asking people to sign a petition to ban a certain substance by a name they were unfamiliar with. Most readily signed to get the stuff banned from use because of the many deaths each year involving the substance. They signed petitions to ban water, listed on the petition as dihydrogen monoxide.

Read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax

People don't have a clue, most generally because they are uninformed and won't expend the effort to get informed.

Yep, I am surrounded by thousands of acres of beautiful weed-free soybeans. That darned roundup done poisoned all the velvetleaf, pigweed, shattercane, nightshade and other weeds and allows us to raise clean crops, instead of spending all our time and money on fuel to cultivate.

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* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

Well put ksfarmer, I will also add that I appreciate the job it did on poison ivy recently at my farm. RIP PI.

The following organizations support the banning of 2,4-D

Agent Orange Association of Canada
Canadian Cancer Society
Canadian Medical Association
Canadian Public Health Association
Ontario College of Family Physicians
Ontario Public Health Association
Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario
Humane Society of Canada
Ottawa Humane Society

Despite industry efforts claiming the safety of this chemical, there is a large body of evidence indicating major health effects from cancer to immunosuppression, reproductive damage to neurotoxicity. The teratogenic, neurotoxic, immunosuppressive, cytotoxic and hepatoxic effects of 2,4-D have been well documented.

http://www.agentorangecanada.com/killme.php

And yet after 63 years of use the European Union and the U.S. EPA still allow 2,4D to be used.

I could see the banning of it in lawn use since city folk are generally the ones that decline to follow label directions. I learned this while working for a county weed department.

City folk can't seem to understand application rates, they just want to load a sprayer with solution and spray. Whether they spray 3 square feet or 10,000 with a 3 gallon sprayer full, in their mind if the solution is mixed right the application rate will be correct. Farmers would bankrupt themselves if they tried that.

Apply too much and you just burn the tops, under apply and you don't get a kill, surprise--when applied correctly chemicals works wonders and at the most efficient price of application.

Jeeze, don't use anything that happens in Ontario lately as some kind of "evidence" of rational, science-based thinking. Since McGuinty got in this province has gotten just as bad as California for namby-pamby left-wing feel-good pandering and ---- the science.

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The internet - fueling paranoia and misinformation since 1873.

There are two types of 2-4-D which one are you talking about? There is regular 2-4-D and 2-4-D animie. The 2-4-D aninie is a paste form that you drag over your yard to kill broad leaf plaints.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

"2,4-D has been linked in various studies to be an endocrine disruptor with predicted human health risks ranging from changes in estrogen and testosterone levels, thyroid problems, prostate cancer and reproductive abnormalities. Other studies indicate that it is a neurotoxin, linked to effects like brain cell death, Parkinson's-like tremors, delays in brain development and abnormal behavior patterns."

http://www.onlineethicalinvestor.org...proc~reso~8506

The Gallon jug of 2-4 D you mix it with water. And no I won;t stop using it as it has done wonders in clearing poison, ivy and oak. and a bunch of other nasty things. It is good and under epa regs, when used according to directions it is not as bad as some on here have stated. Or misrepresented by other so called researchers.
It is those that say if a cup is good then lets do 3 cups and spread that around for even better luck. Follow Directions and it is fine. Use common sense don't go and spray into the wind so that the spray comes back on a person. Things like that.

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