Thirty-three different species of weeds are now reported to have developed resistance to herbicides commonly used in Australian farming systems, says Dr Chris Preston, programme leader for the Weeds CRC.
The worst offenders are annual ryegrass, wild radish and wild oats.
And of the thirteen ‘families’ of chemicals used to control weeds, resistance to ten has now been found in various agricultural weeds, Dr Preston says.
“Those ten groups of herbicides, as you’d expect, are the ones that are most commonly used in our cropping systems,” he adds.
In a few areas of Australia the herbicide resistance problem has become so acute that there are no longer any herbicides available to control particular weeds – such as annual ryegrass – in some crops.
You can read more here.
weed chemicals of weeds in some filed crops
b0c414b4f981 I bookmarked your site and will read it regularly
Hi Jennifer,
Apologies, I sent this post twice before realising the final link did not work, I have now fixed it.
'Bashing corporations' is made considerably easier by the behaviour of the corporations themselves:
'Monsanto fined $1.5 million for bribery'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4153635.stm
'Roundup Ready® canola is like other canola. It’s nutritional qualities and food safety are equivalent to conventional canola.
In a paddock, it looks the same as other canola. With the exception of glyphosate based herbicides (such as Roundup®) unwanted plants can be effectively controlled with the same herbicides as conventional canola.'
http://www.monsanto.com.au/layout/canola/rr_canola/default.asp
So to sum up the only benefit to Roundup Ready® canola is that it is glyphosate resistant but since persistant use of the same pesticide causes 'weeds' to develop resistance, this is not a benefit either.
Monsanto somehow forgot to mention that the yields from their GM product are lower than conventional canola.
'The success of RR soybeans is remarkable in light of the magnitude of the so-called Roundup Ready® "yield drag." Under most conditions extensive evidence shows that RR soybeans produce lower yields than possible if farmers planted comparable but non-engineered varieties.'
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/RRS-Yield-Drag.htm
So bearing all this in mind why the rush to use GM products by famers? Simple, at the current time intensive agricultural processes are the only way for agricultural suppliers to meet the demands of ever lower prices by corporations like WalMart.
Farmers are increasingly unable to afford more agriculturally sustainable practises like proper crop rotations and varied chemicals because the drive for ever cheaper food is destroying normal farm economics and intensive farming methods are the only way of delivering the necessary economies of scale.
If farmers can use the agricultural equivalent of Agent Orange (another chemical Monsanto used to produce) then they do not have to apply it as often (initially) and this saves money (initially) although these benefits are rapidly eroded.
'Food is now cheaper in relative terms than it has ever been' -
It certainly is in the developed world, because the consumer is not being informed of the real cost of all that 'cheap' food in biosphere degredation or the way the farming community is being impoverished by the corporations supplying food to consumers at bargain basement prices.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4742949.stm
There is no such thing as a free lunch and there never will be.
Some may wonder why Monsanto has remained in the struggling agribusiness:
'Monsanto made $4.9 billion in sales in the fiscal year ended 31st August 2003.
Of that, $1.9 billion came from biotech seeds, such as corn and soybeans genetically modified to resist certain insects and withstand applications of Roundup or generic glyphosate weed-killer.
Sales of Roundup® were $1.8 billion. And the company made $1.2 billion in revenue from other agricultural productivity products, primarily its Posilac® growth hormone for dairy cows.'
'For the full fiscal year, the company made a profit of $68 million' after taking a one time hit to pay '$396 million to help settle a liability lawsuit over decades-old contamination of Anniston, Ala., with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.'
- St Louis Post
Perhaps by encouraging international government investment in R&D through educational channels, Monsanto will weather the storm.
North Dakota State University and biotechnology company Monsanto have agreed to work together on ways to improve oilseed crops for biodiesel fuel and other products.
School officials say the partnership makes sense because the state leads the nation in the production of canola, a preferred ingredient in biodiesel.
"This is a great big deal for us," said Ken Grafton, dean of agriculture at NDSU. "In talking to my colleagues across the country, we don't see this level of partnership with private industry."
http://www.northerncanola.com/
8/1/2006 - New Biodiesel Team
Certainly biotech R&D has an added benefit for Monsanto, through its patent on the 35S promoter, a genetic mechanism used extensively in the biotech industry.
'All biotech companies using the promoter must pay Monsanto a technology use fee. By 2004, the company had a 29.82 percent share of all research and development in the biotech industry.'
- Center for Food Safety, 2005
'BXN cotton had a slightly bigger impact, but is now virtually defunct. Again this is because farmers chose not to grow it.' -
Are you sure Chris? Wouldn't the fact that BXN cotton was produced by Calgene, a company that Monsanto bought in 1997 be a fairly direct cause of its replacement by Roundup Ready® product?
Would Monsanto's spending $8 billion acquiring, or establishing relationships with, US and foreign seed companies have anything to do with the popularity of its products and farmers 'choice'?
Certainly the 2005 report by the Center for Food Safety stated that one of the factors contributing to Monsanto’s cornering of the GM market is its control of these seed companies.
“These companies (often owned or indirectly controlled by Monsanto) had to agree that 90 percent of the sales of herbicide-tolerant soybeans would contain Monsanto’s patented technology.
This requirement was later dropped to 70 percent after Monsanto came under scrutiny from government regulators. Through this sort of ownership and control of seed companies, Monsanto has been able to ensure that competition [will] remain small and that its patented genetically engineered crop varieties [will] be the ones most readily available".
http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=seeds_tmln&startpos=0#gm-3
The UK Soil Association’s 2003 report, Seeds of Doubt, shows that virtually every benefit claimed for GE crops since 1996 has not occurred.
'Instead farmers using GE seeds are reporting lower yields, continuing dependency on herbicides and pesticides, loss of access to international markets and a loss of profitability.
The Soil Association estimates that GE soya, maize and oilseed rape could have cost the US economy US$12 billion since 1999 in farm subsidies, lower crop prices, loss of major export orders and product recalls.'
'One of the stranger findings of the report is that rats may be fussier than humans when it comes to eating these products.
“A student placed two bales of maize in a rodent infested barn. One was Roundup Ready® and the other was conventional. Apparently the rodents would not touch the Roundup Ready® crop"
- Greenpeace
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/ed0930aa86103d8380256aa70054918d/a72f34ecca9b64e880256cd70037de0a!OpenDocument
'Bashing corporations' is made considerably easier by the behaviour of the corporations themselves:
'Monsanto fined $1.5 million for bribery'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4153635.stm
'Roundup Ready® canola is like other canola. It’s nutritional qualities and food safety are equivalent to conventional canola.
In a paddock, it looks the same as other canola. With the exception of glyphosate based herbicides (such as Roundup®) unwanted plants can be effectively controlled with the same herbicides as conventional canola.'
http://www.monsanto.com.au/layout/canola/rr_canola/default.asp
So to sum up the only benefit to Roundup Ready® canola is that it is glyphosate resistant but since persistant use of the same pesticide causes 'weeds' to develop resistance, this is not a benefit either.
Monsanto somehow forgot to mention that the yields from their GM product are lower than conventional canola.
'The success of RR soybeans is remarkable in light of the magnitude of the so-called Roundup Ready® "yield drag." Under most conditions extensive evidence shows that RR soybeans produce lower yields than possible if farmers planted comparable but non-engineered varieties.'
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/RRS-Yield-Drag.htm
So bearing all this in mind why the rush to use GM products by famers? Simple, at the current time intensive agricultural processes are the only way for agricultural suppliers to meet the demands of ever lower prices by corporations like WalMart.
Farmers are increasingly unable to afford more agriculturally sustainable practises like proper crop rotations and varied chemicals because the drive for ever cheaper food is destroying normal farm economics and intensive farming methods are the only way of delivering the necessary economies of scale.
If farmers can use the agricultural equivalent of Agent Orange (another chemical Monsanto used to produce) then they do not have to apply it as often (initially) and this saves money (initially) although these benefits are rapidly eroded.
'Food is now cheaper in relative terms than it has ever been' -
It certainly is in the developed world, because the consumer is not being informed of the real cost of all that 'cheap' food in biosphere degredation or the way the farming community is being impoverished by the corporations supplying food to consumers at bargain basement prices.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4742949.stm
There is no such thing as a free lunch and there never will be.
Some may wonder why Monsanto has remained in the struggling agribusiness:
'Monsanto made $4.9 billion in sales in the fiscal year ended 31st August 2003.
Of that, $1.9 billion came from biotech seeds, such as corn and soybeans genetically modified to resist certain insects and withstand applications of Roundup or generic glyphosate weed-killer.
Sales of Roundup® were $1.8 billion. And the company made $1.2 billion in revenue from other agricultural productivity products, primarily its Posilac® growth hormone for dairy cows.'
'For the full fiscal year, the company made a profit of $68 million' after taking a one time hit to pay '$396 million to help settle a liability lawsuit over decades-old contamination of Anniston, Ala., with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.'
- St Louis Post
Perhaps by encouraging international government investment in R&D through educational channels, Monsanto will weather the storm.
North Dakota State University and biotechnology company Monsanto have agreed to work together on ways to improve oilseed crops for biodiesel fuel and other products.
School officials say the partnership makes sense because the state leads the nation in the production of canola, a preferred ingredient in biodiesel.
"This is a great big deal for us," said Ken Grafton, dean of agriculture at NDSU. "In talking to my colleagues across the country, we don't see this level of partnership with private industry."
http://www.northerncanola.com/
Certainly biotech R&D has an added benefit for Monsanto, through its patent on the 35S promoter, a genetic mechanism used extensively in the biotech industry.
'All biotech companies using the promoter must pay Monsanto a technology use fee. By 2004, the company had a 29.82 percent share of all research and development in the biotech industry.'
- Center for Food Safety, 2005
'BXN cotton had a slightly bigger impact, but is now virtually defunct. Again this is because farmers chose not to grow it.' -
Are you sure Chris? Wouldn't the fact that BXN cotton was produced by Calgene, a company that Monsanto bought in 1997 be a fairly direct cause of its replacement by Roundup Ready® product?
Would Monsanto's spending $8 billion acquiring, or establishing relationships with, US and foreign seed companies have anything to do with the popularity of its products and farmers 'choice'?
Certainly the 2005 report by the Center for Food Safety stated that one of the factors contributing to Monsanto’s cornering of the GM market is its control of these seed companies.
“These companies (often owned or indirectly controlled by Monsanto) had to agree that 90 percent of the sales of herbicide-tolerant soybeans would contain Monsanto’s patented technology.
This requirement was later dropped to 70 percent after Monsanto came under scrutiny from government regulators. Through this sort of ownership and control of seed companies, Monsanto has been able to ensure that competition [will] remain small and that its patented genetically engineered crop varieties [will] be the ones most readily available".
http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=seeds_tmln&startpos=0#gm-3
The UK Soil Association’s 2003 report, Seeds of Doubt, shows that virtually every benefit claimed for GE crops since 1996 has not occurred.
'Instead farmers using GE seeds are reporting lower yields, continuing dependency on herbicides and pesticides, loss of access to international markets and a loss of profitability.
The Soil Association estimates that GE soya, maize and oilseed rape could have cost the US economy US$12 billion since 1999 in farm subsidies, lower crop prices, loss of major export orders and product recalls.'
'One of the stranger findings of the report is that rats may be fussier than humans when it comes to eating these products.
“A student placed two bales of maize in a rodent infested barn. One was Roundup Ready® and the other was conventional. Apparently the rodents would not touch the Roundup Ready® crop"
- Greenpeace
http://www.soilassociation.org/b/sa/saweb.nsf/ed0930aa86103d8380256aa70054918d/a72f34ecca9b64e880256cd70037de0a!OpenDocumentwe