Kansas Farmers Forced To Cut Pigweed, Amaranth By Hand; USDA Tracking 14 Roundup-Proof Weeds In U.S.

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Fast-growing weeds like kochia - which becomes that rolling tumbleweed on the prairie - and palmer amaranth or pigweed, are defying even multiple douses of the world’s top-selling herbicide, Roundup, whose primary ingredient is glyphosate. The Hutchinson News (http://bit.ly/1P39SSu ) reports that some are mixing concoctions - some that are more toxic chemicals - to spray fields. Some are putting on multiple applications. And some, including the Suppeses, are dusting off the iron.

McPherson County farmer Monte Dossett said the pigweed became so out-of-control in one of his soybean fields this year that he hired a crew to cut it by hand.

“For a lot of farmers, no one would do anything but use Roundup,” Dossett said as he and his father, Johnnie, harvested soybeans this past October in the field he had rogued. “If you had weeds, you’d just spray Roundup.” But this year, he said, “is by far the hardest year to control weeds that I have had since the use of Roundup.”

Battling weeds has been a continuous thorn in the side of farmers for generations. However, farmers have had a seemingly magical weapon in Roundup. It could kill the toughest weeds. And, thanks to technology, crops like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn and soybeans allowed farmers to apply glyphosate even as soybeans grew.

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/18/kansas-famers-fight-weed-war-as-herbicide-resistan/

Yeah, I know - the Washington Times?