2012/03/18

The wonders of plant genetics - Monsanto

Worth a read:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/tom-philpott-mojo-how-npr-got-it-wrong.html

The view from Monsanto:
http://monsantoblog.com/2010/05/04/roundup-resistant-superweeds/

From the comments section:
Lee Amon says:

Showing how the number of resistant weeds has exploded. And that is supposed to reassure us?
  • avatarMica says:
    @Lee – I believe the chart you pulled off the weedscience.org home page is for all resistant weeds to all classes of herbicides. There are more than 300 resistant weeds. That graph shows that herbicide-resistant weeds are not new.
    What may be more helpful is this chart from the same website:

  • This graph lists the number of resistant weeds by the type of herbicide. You’ll note that the blue line represents glycines, which is the category of herbicide that glyphosate-based chemicals (including Roundup) fall into. This category includes less than 20 weeds. The majority of the weeds in the graph you linked to earlier are resistant to other classes. So, there are around 280 resistant weeds to other herbicides.
===========
It seems to me that there is a herbicide problem in the offing, much like the human antibiotic overuse leading to resistance.


"Starting in 1996, farmers began to plant Roundup Ready corn, soy, and cotton across millions of acres of farmland without restriction."
So it took 5 years for roundup ready resistance to develop in weeds.

Looking at the second graph it appears that the vertical scale is resistant biotypes. - so if a glyphosate only kills 20 biotypes then it has hit full resistance as shown by the flattening of the line.

It would have been more constructive to have a % of biotypes resistant out of biotypes killed as the vertical scale.

Hmmm! do we need to think of what we are doing to the planet?

Where are roundup resistant weeds found:

http://www.weedscience.org/Maps/GlyphosateMap.htm

UK is free - no GMOs

HERBICIDE RESISTANT WEEDS BY COUNTRY

USA 139
Australia 61
Canada 52
France 33
Spain 33
Israel 27
Brazil 26
Germany 26
United Kingdom 24
Italy 19
Belgium 18
Japan 18
Malaysia 17
Czech Republic 16
Chile 14
China 14
South Africa 14
Switzerland 14
Turkey 14
South Korea 12
Iran 11
New Zealand 10
Poland 10
Venezuela 9
Argentina 8
Bolivia 7
Greece 7
The Netherlands 7
Colombia 6
Yugoslavia 6
Costa Rica 5
Mexico 5
Norway 5
Thailand 5

http://www.weedscience.org/summary/CountrySummary.asp

Does the rest of the map agree?

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