[Sue Deacon]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but I have just read this article and it seems to confirm my fears about Glyphosate.

I have used this stuff in the past and fell for the claims that it becomes 'inert' on contact with the soil, (guilty as charged M'Lud)

http://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0117-0

Hope this posts OK. It's another good reason for going organic.

[tagwex]

Ahhh too long and I'm too tired. Is there a watered down version?

[Sue Deacon]

There are other sites that cherry-pick bits of the article (that's how I found it). Or you could skip to the conclusion paragraph which sums up the whole article. I think it is worth reading.

In my friend's garden there was a hollow that needed filling in. We got in some 'top soil' from another site, good soil but VERY weedy. The area was to be planted with shrubs and trees, tough, woody plants. In just over a year I used glyphosate four times to clear nettles, dock, couch and bindweed. Three years later the weeds are as bad as they ever were, the shrubs are struggling and when you turn over the soil there are no signs of life at all. Turn the soil anywhere else and you find worms and wood lice, even the slugs and snails avoid this area! I think I have really screwed-up the soil and I am not sure how to put it right.

[Keeks]

Link not working for me......i found a link on the homepage of the website but wheni click on thelink i get page not found....hmmm conspiracy

[Keeks]

To help fix the problem generally time and patiences help. Keep digging in organic matter to dilute the "bad soil" and put food back in the area for insects to feed off and eventually things will go back to normal.

[Sue Deacon]

Thanks Keeks, I'm working on it, but I think it's gonna take a long time.

[Blowin]

Good contribution, Ma'am. As I've said in other threads, they don't work on grassland but I've not seen it used on crop fields as there aren't any round here.

What no-one ever quotes is whether or not there is a taste to treated vegetation after application, i.e. if rabbits etc. graze it, are they repelled or do they munch on regardless. If they do, and again over time, there must be a feed through in their droppings.

As domestic gardeners we have the options of polythene sheeting etc. that are completely harmless, but the agricultural world isn't so blessed. All these things are tied into the continuing growth in world population, estimated at some 70,000 per day - every day - so maybe Round Up is waiting in the wings to provide a solution?

[Keeks]

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/505/art%253A10.1186%252Fs12940-016-0117-0.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fehjournal.biomedcentral.com%2Farticle%2F10.1186%2Fs12940-016-0117-0&token2=exp=1455966999~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F505%2Fart%25253A10.1186%25252Fs12940-016-0117-0.pdf*~hmac=8e5652ab4cb2b2b53e6ed77d20a3f0f5e57400746cd1dfac258255678951d1d9


Link to pdf version


Interesting read. I think as Blowin says there are other options open to the domestic gardener that lessens the need to use chemicals.

And afterall a weed is only a plant in the wrong place.... And nothin a good hoe cant solve in a regularly maintained garden

[kindredspirit]

Quote: "And nothing a good hoe cant solve in a regularly maintained garden."

except in my front garden, you can't hoe the weeds in my Sandstone Pavement (flags of sandstone laid down on top of the ground.) I use a flame torch but the annual meadow grass reappears a week later. A 5 litre container of vinegar goes nowhere. I'm going to have to spray the little gurriers with something sometime. I wonder if you can fill a vacuum tank with Hydrochloric Acid?

[Sue Deacon]

[Blowin]

In the order that points have been made, the flagstone problem can easily be overcome by laying Ground Control fabric down before re-laying the flags. Small quantities of dust and soil will always fill the gaps between flags but, with no rooting ability, any weed that does appear will be more than easy to pull out.

As for Zika and Rockefeller, no, I didn't know that but Sue's touching on the concept of the Literati, a group of supremely powerful or influential people who devise policies about which the public is blissfully unaware. After all, Myxamotosis was man made to combat the rabbit problem in Australia, and the likes of Zika and Ebola may have similar backgrounds in the way they gain momentum. AIDS?

[tagwex]

Finally got around to reading the conclusion. We have a conundrum alright. I would like to read the other side of the argument as well though to get a balance. Is there one answer that suits all sides? I doubt it.

[Good guy]

I doubt whether it is possible to find 'balance' in anything that is in any way funded by or otherwise linked to big pharma.