Topic: Round up??

[KevTetley]

Hi

I have noticed people mentoining Round Up  - can someone please tell me what it is and why some people are very negative about its use?

I assume its a weedkiller, are there any nicer weedkillers available?

Thanks

Kev

[tim]

Great claims for it being non-persistent, but much since written about its harm.

Lots on the net about it - & on Search here.

eg - http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,3041.0.html

[ACE]

Hi

I have noticed people mentoining Round Up  - can someone please tell me what it is and why some people are very negative about its use?

I assume its a weedkiller, are there any nicer weedkillers available?

Thanks

Kev

Some people do not like putting chemicals on their plots, their choice, I used roundup and other brand names for years, it only kills what it hits and neutralises when it contacts the soil. We used it comercially and on the training course was told to have a bag of dry soil handy to eat, if you were ever stupid enough to get some in your mouth.

I do not have a problem with using it, if you follow the instructions to the letter. Far better than a sheet of plastic or an old carpet leeching its poisons into the ground.

[tim]

Me too - where I deem it appropriate.

But - without knocking any one person - there is no smoke without fire - http://www.naturescountrystore.com/roundup/ ??

We know that Big Brother is in it for his sake?

[galina]

http://fromhealthyfoodtohealthylife.com/new-study-finds-a-very-strong-correlation-between-gmos-and-two-dozen-disease/

This article goes so far as to say that it isn't GM that is the problem but the round-up that invariably goes with growing GM crops.

Of course there are several issues with GM crops per se (like 'accidental' pollen contamination and outcrossing into intentionally grown non-GM crops) and this is the main reason we don't want it here.  Are we not so critical when it comes to round-up?

I agree Tim, there is no smoke without fire, but there are powerful commercial lobbies that are very influential and will forever play on the false premise that they can sort out world hunger, whilst most of their products are used primarily in developed countries where people can afford to pay for them.

When it comes to allotment growing,  there is a big difference between very occasional use and the repeated, systematic dowsing that commercial crops receive.
 
 

[Obelixx]

Round up and its glyphosate look-alikes may well become inert when they hit the soil but they eventually end up in water courses and EU sponsored studies have found this can be in quite heavy concentrations and not good for wildlife.

The main problem with their relation to GM crops produced by Monsanto and their ilk is that farmers then use glyphosate in higher concentrations than are really necessary to kill off unwanted plants and that leads to a build up in the soil and water supply which seems to lead to higher concentrations of health problems and birth defects in those communities.    It's also a form of controlled supply and restrictive marketing practices which are, in my view, indefensible and immoral but the bottom line is what most people and investors consider to be of greater importance, not the long term view for people and the environment.

[Vinlander]

Round Up

I do not have a problem with using it, if you follow the instructions to the letter. Far better than a sheet of plastic or an old carpet leeching its poisons into the ground.

I was happy with the sceptical approach to a compound that is definitely borderline - I would use in an emergency - but then you spoiled it by saying plastic and carpets are worse!

Carpets are a moot point - mainly historically because they used to collect lead in road dust from cars - never a big deal if you had a vacuum cleaner and certainly a dead duck now (no I don't see dyes - by definition fit for a baby to crawl over - as a problem). But they should never be allowed to disintegrate unless they are 100% wool & sisal etc.

Many carpets contain plastic fibres which can't be trusted to be free of chlorine - so they should never be burnt - any chlorine can massively multiply the creation of dioxins in a fire.

PVC is far worse - even as paint or tiny flakes.

But plastic sheets and tarps are polythene and polypropylene - both chlorine- free and the most innocuous of plastics - provided you dump them in the recycling before the sun turns them to scraps and dust.

Cheers.

[johhnyco15]

used some yesterday we ban all carpets due to vinlanders reasons and more and plastic sheeting wsm is allowed as long as its uv stable

[Vinlander]

I will continue in this thread because a good opaque ground cover is the main reason why I hardly ever need Roundup. I have mainly moved to relying on cheap tarp covered with woodchip (the rotted woodchip is my favourite resource) - but:

I wouldn't avoid any post-2000 (lead ban) carpet for occasional use in the garden - the main problem is disposal (a problem you already had if it is from your own house).

The other big problem is when stupid and lazy gardeners don't lift the carpet regularly and it gets thoroughly invaded by weeds - that are then impossible to remove, and the carpet has also become too heavy to lift except by cutting into sections. This is a common problem on allotments where the aforementioned t#@^s have used it for paths that then become reservoirs of invasive weeds .

Simply laying carpet over a pierced plastic sheet solves this by breaking the capillary link to the soil. The carpet dries out in any week without rain and the weeds don't get a foothold. If you're wondering what the point is?  The carpet protects the plastic from being pierced by occasional treading (and foxes), but also stops the plastic disintegrating in the sun - you can use cheap plastic or tarp and it will literally last as long as the carpet does - so the whole area (eg. a path or orchard) becomes low-maintenance.

Carpets in 100% natural fibre would turn themselves into good fertiliser but the annoying tragedy is that they are all pre-2000 and therefore very dodgy unless they come from somewhere with no roads and no open fires (also an annoyingly contradictory requirement  ).

Cheers.

[BarriedaleNick]

The trouble is that for weed killers to be effective they have to be systemic - they have to kill the plant roots and all.  Roundup and the ilk do that well and if they are used sparingly then there aren't that many issues.  Those that choose never to use it have my respect as some weeds are absolute buggers to eradicate but I wouldn't equally condemn anyone who uses it properly.  There are those that spray everything and that get my goat.  One because most weeds can be pulled and composted and two because the spray can carry over to other plots -  I have had damage to the edges of my plots in the past from this sort of use and it is a little annoying..

I try to paint mine on when I do use it and I only use it on bindweed and I use it less and less each year.  You can get or even make friendly weed killers but they often only kill on contact and leave the roots to grow again.  The best and the most friendly weed killer is you!

Worth bearing in mind that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has deemed Glyphosate " Probably_Carcinogenic" - although what this means in practice isn't clear.  Also it doesn't break down on immediate contact with soil - even Monsanto's own site states "glyphosate is biologically degraded over time by soil microorganisms into products that are naturally occurring, including carbon dioxide and phosphate" (My emphasis) - http://www.monsanto.com/glyphosate/pages/glyphosate-frequently-asked-questions.aspx

[daveyboi]

I am not sure how to rate roundup

I used it to kill off an area as shown in the picture below in September




Unfortunately I did not have time to do anything with the area but by March this is how it looked



The only positive is it seems to have killed off a lot of the deep rooted weeds such as thistles and docks.

[Vinlander]

One last point on Roundup because I have used it and might have to again in future.

Bitter experience: don't use water from the dipping tank or rain-butt, they will contain the very same soil bacteria that will stop it working AT ALL . The same thing goes for hoses or containers that have carried anything except tapwater. You can argue whether soil bacteria make it safe - but they definitely make it useless.

NB.  if I wanted a weedkiller for anywhere well separated from wanted plants (like in the pictures above) I'd definitely go for Ammonium SulphAMate rather than a molecule as complex and unpredictable as Glyphosate.

On the other hand if that's a sports' field I wouldn't care - sportsmen are hardly an endangered species 

Cheers.

[ancellsfarmer]

One last point on Roundup because I have used it and might have to again in future.

Bitter experience: don't use water from the dipping tank or rain-butt, they will contain the very same soil bacteria that will stop it working AT ALL . The same thing goes for hoses or containers that have carried anything except tapwater. You can argue whether soil bacteria make it safe - but they definitely make it useless.

NB.  if I wanted a weedkiller for anywhere well separated from wanted plants (like in the pictures above) I'd definitely go for Ammonium SulphAMate rather than a molecule as complex and unpredictable as Glyphosate.

On the other hand if that's a sports' field I wouldn't care - sportsmen are hardly an endangered species 

Cheers.

So would  a shot of bleach (sodium hypochlorite) sort that out ?

[Vinlander]

So would  a shot of bleach (sodium hypochlorite) sort that out ?

It might need more bleach and more time to work than you think - tapwater is filtered very assiduously before it is treated. Bacteria inside bits of humus might be quite hard to kill - humus is very like charcoal in many ways - and charcoal can absorb masses of chlorine (cf. gas masks).

Experiment is the answer -  though total overkill wouldn't be an issue - I've got no problem with putting bleach on weeds! (except that glyphosate relies on living tissue moving it about). Not quite so happy about bleach on soil, but I'm confident it would recover.

To sum up - in general sensible gardening should always involve choosing a simple physical preventative rather than an extra chemical fix - even when using chemical fixes to start with!

Cheers.

[squeezyjohn]

Weedkiller is cheating  - OK I have been known to use the odd bit - but weeding and hoeing beds and getting in there and physically taking out the roots of the unconquered patches is not an impossible task and definitely doesn't poison the ground or crops.  When I have used it - I found something called roundup gel which is very easy to "paint" on to the offending plant like BarriedaleNick suggests.

Simply mass spraying with glyphosate really makes me cross though because I have a problem with an adjoining plot holder who insists on spraying the fence line which almost invariably drifts over to my side of the fence and has noticeably caused die back on my actual crops for several years running.  I have asked him to stop - but he's old and set in his ways and just laughed saying that it was OK - glyphosate is safe and breaks down in the soil.  Try telling that to my potatoes! 

[Vinlander]

Couldn't agree more about weedkiller near plot boundaries - one neighbour I had ~ 30 years ago was the best neighbour I ever had - except he insisted on spraying his half of the path so the grass didn't invade his plot.

It didn't take long for his half of the path to turn to mud and then drop 10cm as it was trodden and washed away.
So everyone walked on my half of the path - and what a surprise they walked on my beds too   After 10 years of this his plot was almost 1m wider than mine - but he was such a nice bloke otherwise...

Cheers.