Some weeds are developing a resistance to one of the most popular crop herbicides. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Johnson reports:
Transcript
Some weeds are developing a resistance to one of the most popular crop herbicides. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Johnson reports:
Farmers like the Monsanto Company herbicide “Roundup” because it kills a wide variety of weeds
without harming crops genetically engineered to resist it. But in the past few years, crop
scientists say Roundup’s popularity has created some problems. Through survival of the fittest, a
very small number of weeds that were always resistant to Roundup have reproduced, and in some
areas now flourish. Mark van Gessel is a weed specialist at the University of Delaware. He says
it’s a situation some farmers are stuck with:
“I really don’t have a lot of hope that we are going to be able to reverse this trend. We just have to learn to live with it.”
van Gessel says that means farmers will need to get away from exclusive use of Roundup and
other less common herbicides that contain its active ingredient. So far, weeds resistant to
Roundup have popped up in Delaware, Maryland, and California as well as in Tennessee, Ohio,
and Indiana.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Shawn Johnson.