Is - or should - this be a concern??

[artme]

Watched that great ABC program Landline the other day. An interesting segment on Faber beans.

I was more than a little surprised to see that Roundup was used on the crop to hasten ripening and drying.

Is this weedicide registered for this?? What are the dangers of the Roundup getting into the food chain because of this??

Even more concerning is the use, particularly in the USA, of Roundup on wheat crops for the same reason.

Apparently in the States Roundup is not "licensed" for this purpose. Again I wonder about Roundup ingestion from the food chain.

[cava]

Is - or should - this be a concern??
Yes.

[OldGrain]

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/Downloads/Roundup%20Ready%20To%20Use%201%20Litre%20Herbicide-datasheet.pdf

This is from just one of the Roundup variants.

[Master Splinter]

Depends. If you generally trust numerous peer reviewed studies conducted by people who generally know what they are doing, start here:

Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans. - PubMed - NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10854122)

More recent work indicates that occupational exposure may put Roundup in the 2A 'probable carcinogens' category, along with wood fire smoke, frying, non-arsenic insecticides and being a hairdresser or barber, but there are still arguments going on about this research.


If you think the UN are conspiring to form a world government for the reptilian aliens, the moon landing was a hoax, fluoride is a mind-control drug, aluminium will give you old-timers disease, and vaccines are giving children autism (or some combination of the above statements thereof), start here:

Scientist Exposes Damage of Glyphosate & Aluminum | Natural Society (http://naturalsociety.com/dr-stephanie-seneff-mit-scientist-explains-synergistic-effect-aluminum-glyphosate-poisoning-cause-skyrocketing-autism/)

When you're on your way out of that particular rabbit hole, please tell Elvis - when you walk past him - that I hate his music.

[ian]

When you're on your way out of that particular rabbit hole, please tell Elvis - when you walk past him - that I hate his music.:2tsup:

[MAPLEMAN]

Yes it should be of great concern
Most of the food we consume from the supermarkets is 'dead' per say
Little wonder folk are full of disease and cancer
As for the 'experts' who'll tell you its all safe...don't listen to any of them :no:
They have their own agenda!
Eat fresh and chemical free food and guess what?....your health will certainly improve and your taste buds will come alive again...MM:)

[Bushmiller]

For a long time Roundup, which we should really refer to as glyphosate as Roundup is to glyphosate as Hoover is to vacuum cleaners, was regarded as a safe chemical.

There were numerous stories abounding including the ability of the human to drink it. The owner of a local nursery said she witnessed somebody demonstrating this act.

Don't do it! :oo:

I recall contacting Monsanto and asking about the longevity factor of Roundup and was told that within a quite short period of time after contact with water (think rain) or contact with the ground, Roundup became inert or at least that was implied.

However, more recently it has become apparent that glyphosate, along with many other chemicals, is more insidious than is evident at first glance. For example, we have a patch of ground where we had previously applied glyphosate. A small patch of garlic we tried to grow failed miserably: I couldn't understand what had gone wrong bearing in mind in a previous life I had grown an acre of garlic commercially.

SWMBO was speaking to a local farmer about this. He asked if the soil was sandy, which it was. He said that his experience was that glyphosate seemed to remain in sandy soil for an extended period of time and had an adverse effect on subsequent plantings.

So this was a wake up call that glyphosate may not be as friendly as first thought. So at this point I suppose we head to the internet and start doing the research. Trouble here is that everybody has an agenda so you really have to look closely at the source.

The other problem is that research itself is expensive. The companies themselves are not going to cough up money to fund a study that will prove detrimental to their product. Anybody else doesn't have the money.

On the subject of Elvis, as a child I grew up disliking him intensely. It was only in later life I appreciated what a musical talent he was and how he had the skill to turn an ordinary song into something special. As a person, however he was a victim of the disease that strikes so many of the famous flung into the public eye: Excess. In that regard he was ultimately a failure.

Returning to Artme's query, anything that is used for a purpose outside the original intent should be vigorously questioned and particularly if there are question marks about the prime function as well.

Regards
Paul

[shedbound]

Rather concerning, as are a lot of supermarket products, Just have a look at the artificial sweetener sucralose and how it was derived.

[AlexS]

As I understand it, glyphosate quickly becomes inert on contact with clay. However, I'm not surprised that this isn't the case with sand. Also, while the herbicide may be neutralised, it, along with most herbicides, contains a wetting agent. It is suspected that this has contributed to the fungal infections that many frog populations are subject to, by removing their protective slimy coat.

[Master Splinter]

The surfactant in Roundup is derived from tallow... so really, should vegans avoid eating fruit and vegetables?

[Kuffy]

It is interesting to read that Roundup remains active within sand. I use roundup as a lawn mower. if it dares grow in my backyard, i kill it with roundup, same goes for my naturestrip. in the backyard its just clay soil, never been landscaped. on the naturestrip it is clay soil with a layer of granitic sand on top. The weeds and grass in the backyard grow back quickly. The weeds on the sand naturestrip dont really grow back, the odd one pops up here n there but its pretty good. So after reading this, im gonna mix up a strong mix of roundup and smother the naturestrip with it. hopefully that will solve the issue of the odd weed popping up here n there.

[Jone5y]

Depends. If you generally trust numerous peer reviewed studies conducted by people who generally know what they are doing, start here:

Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans. - PubMed - NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10854122)

More recent work indicates that occupational exposure may put Roundup in the 2A 'probable carcinogens' category, along with wood fire smoke, frying, non-arsenic insecticides and being a hairdresser or barber, but there are still arguments going on about this research.


If you think the UN are conspiring to form a world government for the reptilian aliens, the moon landing was a hoax, fluoride is a mind-control drug, aluminium will give you old-timers disease, and vaccines are giving children autism (or some combination of the above statements thereof), start here:

Scientist Exposes Damage of Glyphosate & Aluminum | Natural Society (http://naturalsociety.com/dr-stephanie-seneff-mit-scientist-explains-synergistic-effect-aluminum-glyphosate-poisoning-cause-skyrocketing-autism/)

When you're on your way out of that particular rabbit hole, please tell Elvis - when you walk past him - that I hate his music.


This.:goodpost:

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence

[P.W.H.]

Depends. If you generally trust numerous peer reviewed studies conducted by people who generally know what they are doing, start here:

Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans. - PubMed - NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10854122)

More recent work indicates that occupational exposure may put Roundup in the 2A 'probable carcinogens' category, along with wood fire smoke, frying, non-arsenic insecticides and being a hairdresser or barber, but there are still arguments going on about this research.


If you think the UN are conspiring to form a world government for the reptilian aliens, the moon landing was a hoax, fluoride is a mind-control drug, aluminium will give you old-timers disease, and vaccines are giving children autism (or some combination of the above statements thereof), start here:



It all depends, doesn't it. Are those peer reviewed scientists the same ones who claimed, for decades after the risks of smoking had become manifest, that smoking was not damaging to your health? Or are they in the group who get paid to declaim that climate change is a UN conspiracy to let the little green men take over the World Government?

I'll go at it from another angle: I know farmers - having been in the industry for the last 30 years. Do farmers read the instructions on the packaging? Do they stick to the instructions?
Heck, no. We had a couple of idiots who used organophosphate insecticides as pour-on delousing agent on cattle, thus torpedoing the whole beef exports to Korea from NZ for a period of months. I know how farmers use herbicides and insecticides. Some are so tight, they only use half the recommended concentration, thereby fostering resistance, others go hell for leather and double up 'to make sure'. The sensible ones are actually a minority.

So: if Monsanto puts out a GM crop that is designed so it can be sprayed 'safely' with glyphosate then I know that the resulting foodstuffs may contain a much higher concentrate of poison than anticipated.

Furthermore, poison is poison. Anybody who claims you can drink the stuff is a dangerous lunatic. I don't buy into the "organic" vegan new age conspiracy theories any more than I buy into the redneck 'stick their head in the sand' attitudes. I avoid GM stuff not because it's GM, but because I have a damn good idea what the farmers have done with it. That's the 'resistant' crops. And don't even get me started on the crops that have the glyphosate built in via GM. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't eat datura, I don't eat death caps, 'organic' will kill you just as happily as 'not organic', but I don't have to push it by eating poison, right? I would encourage you to read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". A book that came out in the 50s iirc -- some American farmers see her as National enemy #1 (green men, UN, world government, etc) .... and she was a damn good scientist.

[Bushmiller]

Anecdotal evidence is a curse. It's a curse if it is wrong and it's a curse if it is right, because either way it will be damned. On the other hand, well researched evidence is more reliable, but not incontrovertible: As I said before, check out who funded the research. I am not casting aspersions: Just check :cool: .

The thing to my mind that is the fly in the ointment is the exception that proves the rule. (Did I just mix up my metaphors?) For example, Joe Public drinks like a fish, has smoked a packet of cigarettes every day since he was fifteen and dies at the ripe old age of ninety five thus defying the odds of life expectancy. Ergo smoking does not damage your health.

We can always find some sort of exception to any trend, but must be wary of using that to justify our point of view.

I was told an interesting analogy the other day at work. We had a guy come in to test our hearing and do a spirometry test. That's the one where you take a deep breath and then blow out until you think you are going to pass out. Then he says "keep going" and you develop a coughing fit and he says "keep going" and just as you start looking for the blinding light he says "Ok, that's good."

Anyhow that has nothing to do with the analogy. He said if you line up one hundred frogs on the side of a major highway with water on the other side one or two will likely make it across unharmed. That does not mean it is a safe crossing for a frog.

Regards
Paul

[Master Splinter]

I generally work on the theory that there are enough researchers in "the establishment" (mainstream, not woo-woo science) these days who are only too happy to make a name for themselves by proving someone else's research wrong.

The research environment is also significantly different now to how it was back in the days of the tobacco lobby funded 'health' research (thanks to things like tobacco funded 'health' research). To take that as an example, many journals these days won't even touch research that smells even slightly of tobacco industry funding, so I think the awareness of these conflicts of interest are stronger than ever.

Andrew Wakefield, who fabricated the evidence for his "vaccines cause autism" study only got away with that for two years till doubts were being raised about its validity, so on a contentious subject like Roundup poisoning, where reputations could be made overnight, I generally feel safe in positioning it lower on my priority list than worrying about being hit by a car, winning the lottery or choking to death on a carrot while climbing a ladder holding a running 9" angle grinder with no safety shield.

But I do get the point about not trusting farmers to dose things correctly.

[chambezio]

A mate summed up Farmers attitude by saying that they believe in the "Quantity Principle"
"If 'some' is good.......more is 'better'

He also went on to say that "Farmers should not be sold chainsaws or electric welders"
He clarified the electric welder by saying that a farmer did some casual bus driving. The wheel nuts kept coming loose on one side of the bus.....so he fixed it.......yep with the welder
True story, as sad as it is

My mate was a tractor mechanic at one stage of his life

[artme]

I ran a citrus orchard for 15 ears or so. I used Roundup for the sole purpose of controlling nutgrass.

I did not use other herbicides to control weeds. I had a trickle irrigation system and slashed the inter row space.

I had many neighbours and friends who slathered their properties with Hyvar, Krovar or Sinbar. Their properties
looked like clay tennis courts with trees stuck in them. I saw on a visit back there in Oct./Nov last year just how
endemic this practice has become. I understand there are economic reasons for this. But I worry about the long term
effects of these practices. These include resistance and soil structure issues and the possibility of uptake into the food
supply that MAY be harmful.

I have seen the results of wrong dosages of chemicals and they weren't pretty.

What happens when these products flush into the water cycle? How is aquatic life affected? Do we really know anything at present?

I know I have side tracked a bit but there is a broad range of issues here that needs consideration.

[twosheds]

This is an interesting question that artme has put forward. Well I might just add my 2 cents worth...

Although I'm not a farmer I have found myself doing a bit of farm hand work for the past few years on a relative's grain property in northwest NSW. The sheer amount of chemical used in broadacre farming is staggering. We might use 5, 6 or 7 shuttles of glypho just at sowing time. 1 shuttle equals 1,000 litres. And this is a relatively small cropping operation.

With glypho being out of patent there is a lot of it now coming in from China because it is cheaper to produce there. I can't help but wonder what other nasty manufacturing byproduct chemicals or impurities are in with the Chinese produced glypho that we don't know about. Think dioxin in agent orange (USA), melamine in milk (China) or asbestos in Great Wall cars (China) just off the top of my head.

Is Roundup safe? I certainly hope so because I have ingested more than my fair share while mixing and spraying it, daresay just like every other spray tractor/rig operator. But I am more worried about some of the nastier selective herbicides, insecticides and fungicides that are used on our food crops than poor old Roundup.

I seems I have rambled on a bit so I had better stop.

Regards
Twosheds

[P.W.H.]

I have seen the results of wrong dosages of chemicals and they weren't pretty.

What happens when these products flush into the water cycle? How is aquatic life affected? Do we really know anything at present?
.

We actually know one heck of a lot. There are reasons why DDT, Lindane, Dieldrin and 2,4,5-T got banned from first world countries.
Not sure if 2,4-D is still available ...

Carson did a lot of documentation of water-borne run-off. What is even more creepy is when you read her documentation of synergistic effects between some herbicides and some insecticides. Whoa Nelly.

As I said before, I am not in the zealously religious 'organic' camp, I will happily use anthelmintics, antibiotics, insecticides, and even herbicides when warranted - but one has to be extremely conscious about just what one does do. Feeding wholesale antibiotics to broiler chickens and vealers to make them grow faster is wrong on so many levels, for instance .... profits aren't *everything*. Unfortunately profits are the *only* thing that corporates think about. They have no interest in the quality of their product, the ethics, or, for that matter, the land and the continued survival of the species.

[kiwigeo]

He also went on to say that "Farmers should not be sold chainsaws or electric welders"
He clarified the electric welder by saying that a farmer did some casual bus driving. The wheel nuts kept coming loose on one side of the bus.....so he fixed it.......yep with the welder
True story, as sad as it is

My mate was a tractor mechanic at one stage of his life

The Farmer did what I would have done if the nuts kept coming loose and the bus owner wasn't providing a permanent solution to the problem.

[TermiMonster]

The Farmer did what I would have done if the nuts kept coming loose and the bus owner wasn't providing a permanent solution to the problem.

Ever heard of loctite....a lot easier the next time you get a puncture.

[kiwigeo]

Ever heard of loctite....a lot easier the next time you get a puncture.

I would consider Loctite a temporary fix to to the problem like the weld up job.

The farmer should be given credit....he was obviously checking the wheel nuts on a regular basis. Alot of people wouldn't have picked up that the nuts were loose until they noticed one of the bus's wheels rolling past.

[TermiMonster]

I can't argue with that logic.

[P.W.H.]

The farmer should be given credit....he was obviously checking the wheel nuts on a regular basis. Alot of people wouldn't have picked up that the nuts were loose until they noticed one of the bus's wheels rolling past.

That actually happened to a fellow student of mine way back when, tearing down the Autobahn in Germany when people started waving and flashing their lights, next thing his rear wheel was overtaking him ... I just bet that was a brown pants moment at 130+ km/h.

[kiwigeo]

That actually happened to a fellow student of mine way back when, tearing down the Autobahn in Germany when people started waving and flashing their lights, next thing his rear wheel was overtaking him ... I just bet that was a brown pants moment at 130+ km/h.

Also happened to my brother while trundling along in his mate's VW beetle.

[Handyjack]

While the wheel of the bus did not come off, it was not far from it. And while the speed of the bus was no where near 100 km/h, the location had its own problems, not from the passing traffic, but rather lack of it.
The bus I was on was a tourist bus, 1-Jan-1980, at Uluru (Ayres Rock) National Park. Fortunately the driver felt something wrong and stopped. By using a two way radio he was able to obtain a relief bus. We were in the middle of nowhere for about 45 minutes.

[rustynail]

Where I grew up this was a common practice on bush vehicles. The "roads" were as rough as you could get and a lot of gibber country. A soft weld and a good file if you got caught out. Otherwise a small angle grinder back in the shed.

[A Duke]

Hi,
Bedford trucks had left hand threads on one side to overcome that, I do not know how many got broken by the uninformed trying to undo them.
Regards

[Bushmiller]

The Toyota Dyna trucks I had also had LH threads. The first time I removed a wheel I broke two spanners before I worked this out. Right is right and left is wrong is the way I remember it. If you know what to look for, the LH nuts have a nick on the edge of each face too.

Regards
Paul