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

I sure didn't mean to cause such a ruckus by starting this thread. I sincerely wanted to hear (read) your opinions on this subject. I've been an avid reader of this website for nearly a year now. I've grown to respect the people on here. I've already learned more from you than I could in YEARS of trial and error.

I am not, nor will I ever be a large scale farmer so I can not speak from that perspective. I believe the farmers have a rough enough time making it. It is certainly not my place to judge their methods of growing their crops. I have a very small plot of ground. I chose NOT to use chemicals on my property. I chose to buy organic whenever possible. Those are my choices.

It would be so wonderful if we could disagree on a subject without being disrespectful. Please, whatever your opinions, try to express them without demeaning one another.

Thanks to all of you for your replies. It has been very informative.

God Bless.

Penny

At least this entire thread has been consistent. Someone says show me an economically viable non chemical answer and I did. Then you say no, no, no, that's not good enough.

Then you challenge me to show you something that in your own words cannot be done "now or ever".

So what is it that you really want?

In my post #52 I spoke of the information as being useless since it was based on the death of just three cells.

I re-read that this morning and the test was based on THREE LINES of cells or cell types if you will.

My apologies to you Jeff for saying the banning was ridiculous by being based on three cells when it was really based on three types cells instead.

Because of my error I will state, perhaps more investigation does need to occur.

Again, my apologies.

In re: the original question,
Yes, I use roundup (or generic) on fence rows and cut honeysuckle stumps, &c. I do not use it inside the garden.
Practically speaking, I have found that berries are extremely sensitive to it, even drift exposure.
Have heard that some weeds are getting resistant to it on agribusiness-size farms.
Have any of you heard of chemical mowing? It's the using of just enough roundup to stun the plant and cease growing, but not kill it. Again, lots of fossil fuel savings, but increased chemical exposure. No free lunches...

Jeff54321
Polyfacefarms has developed a niche market for their products. The question is would they be successful if they didn't have a niche market.

If you can develop a niche market that's great, but not everybody has the potential to do that.

What you did was to show that Poleyfacefarms is selling beef for $15 per pound and making a large profit. If all beef was to be sold for $15 per pound
every beef producer would be making a large profit. So your argument that it is the beat way is not a valid one. Can you show me a grain farmer that grows more that 1000 acres that does not use chemicals that makes just as much as one that uses chemicals?
If you can show me one that then everybody will listen as long as it is not a niche market they sell too.But then you may think that niche markets are the way to do and everybody can make money going to niche markets and disregarding the commercial markets.

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

On a very small plot of land you can grow more without the use of chemicals. but you will work harder doing it. So the choice is yours. Comparing large farms to a small plot of land is what most of us are angry over. Chemicals are the way to grow especially grain without hiring a lot of people to weed the crops and to get a better yield by using fertilizer.

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

Not like we should need any more clear evidence of harmful effects, but here goes: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/tx800218n

G = glyphosphate
R = Roundup

__________________
My How To blog - Happy Homesteading!

I worked for a county weed department and we did road ditch rights of way chemical mowing.

In barrow ditches you want vegetation growing to hold the soil from moving, just not tall vegetation. We used atrazine which provided about 120 day weed growth suppression if I remember correctly.

Mowing labor cost, equipment cost & high upkeep cost, and fuel cost for 120 days versus one chemical application---that's a no brainer IF chemical use is allowed and road safety warrants it. Bear in mind that mowing was still needed, just not to the extent without chemical use.

Each year quite a number of people would phone in and thank us for controlling the weeds around intersections so that they could adequately see and safely proceed from a stop.

Y'all have strayed way way far away from the original topic with the apparent goal of evading the very evidence you ask for and then presenting a new entirely off topic argument.

I am not going to give the entire history of the family farm here in this post but I will mention a few facts. The family farmers have been dying a long slow painful death after doing exactly what big agribusiness told them to do in order to survive. Bigger farms, GM seed, pesticides, herbicides, bigger farms, more GM seeds, more, more, more, more, more, more pesticides, more herbicides, drugs for the animals, drugs for the people, more drugs, more chemicals. And guess what, Monsanto got filthy rich and the family farmers went bankrupt.

So if it makes you feel good keep doing what Monsanto wants you to do.

Old Vet, There are no 1000 acre organic farms that I am aware of. Farms of that magnitude are a result of the Monsanto plan and as previously mentioned it does not work, except for Monsanto.

The big lie that we have to have monster farms is exactly that, a big lie. I can show you countless small organic farms that provide a decent living for the farmer despite the fact that they do not get one cent from the government as opposed to the mega corn farmers who would ALL be out of business if it were not for government subsidies.

So keep switching the subject and changing the arguments and pretending that Monsanto is some fairy tale benevolent company looking out for the good of the world. HA !

Enjoy your weekend.

Controling weeds in a fence line:

Roundup (glophosate) is not the best choice. It kills all green stuff, so the ground is bare, and then more weeds sprout. There is a 50 year supply of weed seeds stored in the ground, so.... This cycle repeats endlessly.

If you can tolerate grass along your fence, spray a good broadleaf herbicide to kill the big weeds and trees sprouts. This will leave the grass alone, to shade the ground & reduce weeds to almost nothing in 3 years or so. From then on, one could almost pull the few weeds every year, or only have to spot spray every few years.

If the ground should be bare under your fence, a good soil sterilizer will kill the weeds, and prevent plants from sprouting for a year or more - much fewer applications of herbicide this way.


Jeff: You 'know' that organic farming is the only way to farm, so you are looking for only bits of info that support your known core value. Nothing you present is really helpful, because it is all incomplete. You are not looking at your data to find an answer; you are looking for bits of data that support your goal. This does not prove anything, it does not convince anyone, it is not scientific. It has little value. You are pushing a religion, a belief - you are not working with science and proofs of your conclusions. I did not mean to belittle you, sorry if my comments did. You are intelligent enough to know that what you are doing is not credible. You are pushing a religion, not a science nor an ecconomic truth.

Organic farming takes some specialty. The right land, or the right market. It almost always costs more. Labor is expensive! If you grow your own garden & don't count your labor, you can do great with organic. If you are near a big city with a lot of yuppies with big budgets, you can sell your stuff for a lot of money to those few people - good marketing will make rich people pay more for the same thing.

Raising enough food with our available land on this planet for billions of people - we have to do so cheaply and on less than perfect land. Many would starve if we were 100% organic around the globe. We would lose a lot of land.

Individual examples of small markets with people making huge amounts of money from rich people does not prove organic farming works everywhere.

Farming is taking nutrients out of the ground and hauling them away as food. Those nutirents need to be replaced. Neither organic nor normal farming is 'sustainable', in that nutrients need to be resupplied to the soil in either case.

I'm aware of several 1000 acre plus organic farms. Hats off to them. They jump through the hoops to make their farming methods fit certain regulations, and have the right type of land to make it work. They must recieve more dollars per unit of food produced to pay for the extra stuff they must do.

There is nothing wrong with organic for those with the time or money to do so.

Many chemicals we use throughout our day have hazards with them. I'm sure Roundup does as well. Gasoline is listed as more hazardous - shall we ban gasoline too? It is worse than glysophate & the soaps used with them.

We need to balance the hazards of life with the needs of life.

I don't see what it is you want Jeff - you have not proved anything. You don't understand how farming works. You have a religion - a belief. That is fine, but it won't work for everyone. Only the rich & the special people and those with a lot of free time & land can play your game. Are you willing to throw away all those poor people - those living in apartments too - to make your belief a reality?

We need to try to keep making our world safer. At the same time, we need to realize that changing how we do things can result in more people harmed, more hazards to the masses. We need to look at these things scientifically, not just a one dimentional emotional reaction. Look at the big picture.

--->Paul

Rambler-
thanks for the info.
I know about seed bank in soil and bare ground=new weeds. But can't tolerate grass either - wove wire fence and weedeaters don't mix well. And even if sterilize the banked seeds, birds alighting on fences is a primary source of weeds below them via feces-borne seeds. Waste wood planks under the wire or mulch might work. Or spent nuclear fuel...

[QUOTE=rambler;3924091]Controling weeds in a fence line:

Roundup (glophosate) is not the best choice. It kills all green stuff, so the ground is bare, and then more weeds sprout. There is a 50 year supply of weed seeds stored in the ground, so.... This cycle repeats endlessly.

If you can tolerate grass along your fence, spray a good broadleaf herbicide to kill the big weeds and trees sprouts. This will leave the grass alone, to shade the ground & reduce weeds to almost nothing in 3 years or so. From then on, one could almost pull the few weeds every year, or only have to spot spray every few years.

If the ground should be bare under your fence, a good soil sterilizer will kill the weeds, and prevent plants from sprouting for a year or more - much fewer applications of herbicide this way.


Jeff: You 'know' that organic farming is the only way to farm, so you are looking for only bits of info that support your known core value. Nothing you present is really helpful, because it is all incomplete. You are not looking at your data to find an answer; you are looking for bits of data that support your goal. This does not prove anything, it does not convince anyone, it is not scientific. It has little value. You are pushing a religion, a belief - you are not working with science and proofs of your conclusions. I did not mean to belittle you, sorry if my comments did. You are intelligent enough to know that what you are doing is not credible. You are pushing a religion, not a science nor an ecconomic truth.

Organic farming takes some specialty. The right land, or the right market. It almost always costs more. Labor is expensive! If you grow your own garden & don't count your labor, you can do great with organic. If you are near a big city with a lot of yuppies with big budgets, you can sell your stuff for a lot of money to those few people - good marketing will make rich people pay more for the same thing.

Raising enough food with our available land on this planet for billions of people - we have to do so cheaply and on less than perfect land. Many would starve if we were 100% organic around the globe. We would lose a lot of land.

Individual examples of small markets with people making huge amounts of money from rich people does not prove organic farming works everywhere.

Farming is taking nutrients out of the ground and hauling them away as food. Those nutirents need to be replaced. Neither organic nor normal farming is 'sustainable', in that nutrients need to be resupplied to the soil in either case.

I'm aware of several 1000 acre plus organic farms. Hats off to them. They jump through the hoops to make their farming methods fit certain regulations, and have the right type of land to make it work. They must recieve more dollars per unit of food produced to pay for the extra stuff they must do.

There is nothing wrong with organic for those with the time or money to do so.

Many chemicals we use throughout our day have hazards with them. I'm sure Roundup does as well. Gasoline is listed as more hazardous - shall we ban gasoline too? It is worse than glysophate & the soaps used with them.

We need to balance the hazards of life with the needs of life.

I don't see what it is you want Jeff - you have not proved anything. You don't understand how farming works. You have a religion - a belief. That is fine, but it won't work for everyone. Only the rich & the special people and those with a lot of free time & land can play your game. Are you willing to throw away all those poor people - those living in apartments too - to make your belief a reality?

We need to try to keep making our world safer. At the same time, we need to realize that changing how we do things can result in more people harmed, more hazards to the masses. We need to look at these things scientifically, not just a one dimentional emotional reaction. Look at the big picture.

--->Paul[/QUOTE

Wish I can say it like that. Well done.

__________________
We have now officially entered the twilight zone.

Apparently it is necessary to put forth a short discussion on Aristotelian Logic and logical fallacies in order that this discussion stay focused on the good and bad points of Roundup.

“After 2,000 years the standard treatment of fallacies remain much the same as the thirteen fallacies pointed out by Aristotle in his Sophistical Refutations.

A fallacy, then, is an argument which seems to be valid, but is not really so.

Argumentum ad Hominem (abusive and circumstantial): the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument. Often the argument is characterized simply as a personal attack.

An Abusive Ad Hominem occurs when an attack on the character or other irrelevant personal qualities of the opposition—such as appearance—is offered as evidence against the position.”

Those "few" people spent almost 25 billion last year and that does not include sales from farms, CSA's, roadside stands and farmers markets.

As a side note I live in a rural farming town of 4000 people with a thriving organic food store and not a "yuppie" in sight. Apparently my neighbors don't know that should not be buying overpriced organic food because they are not yuppies.

U.S. organic sales grow by a whopping 17.1 percent in 2008

"Greenfield, MASS. (May 4, 2009)—U.S. sales of organic products, both food and non-food, reached $24.6 billion by the end of 2008, growing an impressive 17.1 percent over 2007 sales despite tough economic times..."

http://www.organicnewsroom.com/2009/..._by_a_who.html

Alice I totally agree with you.

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~Teresa~


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