Comments on: There’s more of a difference between a crop and a weed than where they grow

By: John Walter

John Walter — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:50:55 +0000

Very good discussion on a topic of interest to many of our magazine readers and website visitors. We’re featuring your blog today on the Agriculture.com [A]-List. It deserves a wide airing among agriculturalists, including farmers.

By: mr_subjunctive

mr_subjunctive — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:14:36 +0000

There’s also the matter of weeds being able to spontaneously resist herbicides, with or without any GMO canola. As much Round-Up (glyphosate) as gets sprayed around, I’d have been surprised if some weeds didn’t figure it out on their own sooner or later. Everybody’s acting like glyphosate was going to be some kind of miracle herbicide that was going to be useful forever. This whole story makes me mad.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:08:04 +0000

Even with resistance genes mating with a crop is a bad move for any would be weed. Especially for the reasons you’ve mentioned above.

By: James

James — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:42:53 +0000

It does end up kind of circular. Why do they think herbicide resistance GMOs bad? Because they arguably increase the spraying of herbicides. Why is it bad if the trait escapes into weedy species (or weeds develop their own resistance)? Because then we won’t be able to use those herbicides as much.

I could understand, if not agree, with a person worried about one of those things, but being worried about both at once strains credibility.

By: mr_subjunctive

mr_subjunctive — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:59:13 +0000

But you don’t understand — they’re superweeds! SUPERWEEDS, man! We have no choice but to panic!

The issue that’s been getting me the most upset about this whole thing is that none of the alarmists have bothered to give me a reason why I should give a crap. So this canola can withstand certain herbicides, and it spreads. Big whoop. We’re cultivating it on purpose already: we’re supposed to want there to be more of it, right?

And anyway, all this is likely to do is make the particular herbicides in question less effective. If they’re not as effective, then we’ll stop using them so much.

If we stop using the herbicides as much, then these plants lose their advantage over other plants.

If these plants lose their advantage over other plants, then they’ll be outcompeted and will eventually disappear. Problem solves itself.

I’m willing to be mildly upset about stuff like BT corn (most of what I’ve seen suggests that it’s not especially dangerous to monarchs and other nontarget organisms, but there’s still the issue of Monsanto ruining a public good, and the possibility that the transgenes in question might become more of a threat to nontarget organisms. But one doesn’t have to freak out over every transgene regardless of its origin or purpose. This one looks to me like it’s more likely to hurt the companies that sell the herbicides than anybody else, and I’m pretty okay with that, frankly.