Someone mentioned amaranth in the quinoa thread and this relates directly to
the ongoing failure of Roundup Ready technology.  Where I live in central
North Carolina almost all fields of soybeans are Roundup Ready and this year
almost all of them have healthy stands of pigweed that have become resistant
to Roundup.  Pigweed is first cousin to amaranth, is a C4 plant, and one
plant can produce upwards of 700,000 seeds if allowed to seed out.  Cotton
farmers have been plagued with resistant Palmer amaranth (see The Southeast
Farm Press for details) and now the soybean farmers are seeing very similar
problems.  Interestingly many environmental groups support Roundup Ready
technology because overall soil erosion rates have declined as have overall
usage of herbicides.  Farmers liked the technology because it is simple and
it worked.  It looks like the farmers will have to go back to pre-emergence
herbicides and tillage to deal with resistant weeds.  More weeds potentially
means more flowers so maybe bees will benefit from this situation.  When
Roundup worked the fields were biological deserts.

 

Bill


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