I mean, the man's a Socialist, stands up to Monsatan and the vulture funds, and he's French !?!

Sacré bleu!

Of using roundup (which they said was biodegradable for a long time)and finding that although it is a great weed killer it seems to be a pretty good all around killer and really messes bees up... have ceased using it and am trying a of different non polluting stuff that will only kill the weeds

will get her ass sued off by Monsanto for saying such a thing.

(TTIP is the even more evil twin of the TPP, and will also go through
on the TPP fast track.)

Wake The Fuck Up People !!!

does not do any good to be so inaccurate (this is aimed at the article, not the OP)

+1

I do some ecological restoration and round up (glyphosate) is an important tool.

Right now I am working on area that is loaded w/non native invasive plants
and I am trying to build a system that has native plants, helps the
monarch butterfly, fixes carbon, helps beneficial insects, and allows rain water
to soak back into the soil or you can have an area that is ecologically dead
with bush honeysuckle, garlic mustard, buckthorn, thistle, and callery pear.

Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

because it was supposed that humans did not have the enzyme system that glyphosate affects in plants. Turns out humans do have that enzyme system in their digestive system.

Always remember that when you use this product it is entering the surrounding air, neighbors are exposed, and it can wash off the property.

no it doesn't ..... it chelates to clay molecules.

I agree it overused and that we are developing new strains of plants that are "round up resistant"
such as day lily.

One of the biggest ecological problems we are dealing with is non native plants that are invasive
and how they hurt the balance of nature and the natural supportive capacity of "wild areas" and
round up is ONE tool that can help with this problem.

I don't know the size of the area you're clearing but the advantages to hand clearing are many, including a buff bod.

Using an unnatural potentially toxic chemical on a patch of ground you're trying to put back to its natural state is very ironic; surely you noticed that?

and keep pulling honeysuckle shrubs for years you are more then welcome to it.

BTW I now have an area that has hosted generations of the endangered monarchs
along w/humming birds, hawks, owls, butterflies, native pollinators, other critters,
soaks up rain water, fixes carbon, reduces storm water run off, doesn't need mowed,
no fertilizers, and helps the local biodiversity too.

And what is truly unnatural is the privet, honeysuckle, callery pear trees, thistle, rose of
sharon, norway maple, and ground cover euonymus.

However, the Japanese Knotweed that found its way into my landscape several years ago keeps me pretty busy. If you think your honeysuckle et al is invasive, you haven't seen nothin' yet.

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/plants/weeds/aqua015.html

And yes, we use elbow grease, not glyphosate or any other chemical.

native plants, no mow grass, prairies, and stuff

I have dealt w/both knotweed and honeysuckle and honeysuckle is worse.


Horticultural Vinegar might help w/your knotweed. Remember that nature hates
a vacuum so when you take a bad plant out plant another good one in its place.

knotweed is a prolific seeder so get ready to know what seedlings look like and
hoe them out.

Knotweed spreads a number of ways but its rhizomes are the worst. It also spreads through root/stem fragments left behind when you dig it out. Does your honeysuckle do that? Didn't think so. This is what one is up against with this zombie of plants. It's so notorious the UK has classified it as toxic waste with strict rules regarding its disposal.

So, no, your honeysuckle is basically a leisurely walk in the park compared to the scourge I've been blessed with by a careless neighbor. Yet I manage to keep it in control without toxic chemicals. Imagine that.

Depending on the size of area you are working with you might want to cut it
down w/a weed whip, wait 10 days or so then spary the new growth w/horticultural
vinger, and 5 days later covering them black plastic.

But yes you are right it is a pain in the butt to deal w/ ...... I have seen it send
runners under small buildings and concrete areas.

BTW I want my chemicals in some cases to be toxic because I am trying to kill
stuff.

Monsanto chemicals are good for that, for sure.
Have fun and good luck.

Glyphosate Herbicide Found in Many Midwestern Streams, Antibiotics Not Common

"A total of 154 water samples were collected during the 2002 study in nine Midwestern States. Glyphosate was detected in 36 percent of the samples, while its degradation product, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) was detected in 69 percent of the samples. The highest measured concentration of glyphosate was 8.7 micrograms per liter, well below the MCL (700 micrograms per liter). "
http://toxics.usgs.gov/highlights/glyphosate02.html

wow

it does run-off, which you said it did not. There would be higher levels after a spraying, therefore taking it off the property to other locations. It also travels off property in the air.
These products can be powerful tools but we have to be knowledgeable about the consequences of their use and minimize that as much as possible.

The French minister was ridiculed here for trying to stop domestic use of glyphosate but she is considering health effects to people who are exposed. In the context of the perfect and the good, her priorities are good.

Could you provide a reference for that claim? I haven't seen it before. Thanks!

in the generic sense and it covers herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. It is used in this way in most of the literature and EPA has explained their usage of the word pesticide to include other cides.

Pesticide is a larger grouping which includes insecticides, fungicides, and yes, herbicides.

Yes it is important to be scientifically accurate and when we make up our own definitions for what is a pest and what is a pesticide we are not being scientifically accurate.

http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/What-Is-A-Pesticide.htm

good (meaning commerce) reasons. I am not arguing with you - I am arguing with their definition.

Sorry but you are arguing with the scientists who study this stuff. It's not just the law. But the law is important, because otherwise EPA could not regulate the use of herbicides - they regulate them under the law which allows them to regulate pesticides. I can assure you that it would be a bad thing for everyone if herbicides were not grouped with pesticides.

that would make more logical sense, that's all. I would much prefer that they be considered separately, because chemically they are very different, with different uses and exposures.

I don't see what your degree has to do with it. Appealing to authority, even your own, does not trump the scientific understanding of an issue. Good luck with trying to get the entire field of weed science to accept your logic.

which in turns kills monarch butterflies, is it not a pesticide? In the broad sense as used here.

Now we get to hear Monsanto claim they're offended.

What she actually said was "« La France doit être à l’offensive sur l’arrêt des pesticides, a déclaré la ministre. Elle doit être aussi à l’offensive sur l’arrêt des pesticides dans les jardins », a-t-elle dit.
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2015/06/14/segolene-royal-veut-stopper-la-vente-du-desherbant-roundup-de-monsanto_4653835_3244.html#kfPQ4rthvTXjLjgx.99

A correct translation would read "France must be a leader in stopping pesticide use. It must also take the lead in stopping pesticide use in gardens."

A word for word translation of French into English never works, the result is ROFL funny, as you pointed out. No English speaker would say "Be on the offensive". That's why machine translations of foreign language text always have to be corrected by a qualified human.

Good catch!

On edit: They actually printed "Must be offensive" which is not only a sloppy translation, but it's factually wrong - even word for word. Wow. What press group was this? Reuters! Wow, that's scary.

Reuters prides itself on it's business reporting. It's an easy gig, you do scripted "interviews" with CEOs and can be 100% wrong in your predictions. FOX couldn't even do THAT right.

Heaven forbid American Media goes back to the days when they paid for actual bureaus in major cities that tracked local evens and had local contacts and tried to out-scoop each other. CNN used to pride itself on having a vast network of reporters, now it has Wolf Blitzer running his mouth.

And I just found out a couple weeks ago, that when they go on trips (a few times per year) they pour insecticide down the drains to keep moths and gnats from growing while they're gone.

We went to check on their home while they were gone on their last trip, and the place had a horrible stench of chemicals because all the windows had been closed. I had to go outside until the place aired out.

I gotta talk to him about this. Bleach may be a kinder solution.

Please do research on the chemicals in the products. First refer to the MSDS for the product. Do not believe the minimized effects noted on the MSDS because they are prepared by legal departments. Instead do a lot of searching for research that has been done on the chemicals. Check Environmental Health Perspective (publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences), the site: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/tddb and click on their database, check PubMed.

You FIL and MIL could become very ill doing this if they are breathing those fumes upon their return. Also, these chemicals attachto surfaces such as furniture, walls, carpet, dust, counters and cooking utensils.

Vinegar is another standby. Depends on your PH. Here in Vegas the soil is so alkaline that vinegar makes things grow more. (As I discovered the hard way)

It's telling that most of the studies that have found a correlation between human health issues and glyphosate were those that studied either farmers or farm laborers that used the stuff in high concentrations for long periods of time. So while the evidence is stacking up that glyphosate is dangerous to human health, the dose required to get there is beyond what most of the population is ever exposed to, even when you take into account soil run-off where it occurs.

The average backyard owner, using glyphosate in low concentrations, likely doesn't have a great deal to worry about unless they're ingesting it for some odd reason.

And as was stated further upthread, there are some applications where it's simply indispensable. I spent years as a young man attacking 30 acres of mixed oak/maple/basswood forest on my parent's farm that was overrun with European buckthorn, and the only thing that worked against that plant (short of hiring a small army of workers and power equipment) was cutting the buckthorn down and painting the stumps with Round-up to kill the roots.

Personally, I try to use it as sparingly as possible as I've been converting my 1.5 acre yard into a permaculture establishment. I tried organic herbicide solutions, such as vinegar, but found this ineffective against deep-rooted species. Ultimately I settled on a 50/50 mix of 2% glyphosate and 5% vinegar, with a squirt of dish soap for a surfactant; the vinegar kills the weaker plants and desiccates the leaves, while the Round-Up attacks the roots of tough species like thistles and crabgrass.