Glyphosate

[Paulatic]

Bracken:
We were taught in college back in 1970 the 3 2 1 system. Cut or crush 3x a yr in the first yr. Twice the year after and once in the 3 rd year.
Because of the type of ground bracken establishes in that’s easier said than done. I recall an estate in Glaisdale N Yorks Moors having purpose built rollers for such an exercise back then. One farm I worked in my youth had baled bracken for bedding. I can still see the white clouds of stour floating in the air after using one. Doesn’t bear thinking of
If you look at the route taken by sheep and cattle gathered from the hill their path through a bracken area is kept clear. The regular crushing of hooves and quad bike tyres does the job.
There was another product, can’t remember the name, a quarter of the price of Asulox which wasn’t licenced for Bracken. I treated an area with it with some success then the product was removed from the market. 25 yrs on the bracken is still there

[PDQ Mobile]

Stour!
I had to look it up!
Sign of a soft southerner?

------
Stour:-
Dust forming a cloud or deposited in a mass.

[al_yrpal]

Says in the paper that big garden centre chains are reviewing whether they should be stocking Roundup. Stock up! My neighbour still has some creosote, how many years ago did they ban that?

Al

[661-Pete]

I wonder you guys didn't stock up on asbestos, some 30 years back. Damned useful stuff that (as I remember from school Chemistry lessons... )! But can you get it today???

[kwackers]

I wonder you guys didn't stock up on asbestos, some 30 years back. Damned useful stuff that (as I remember from school Chemistry lessons... )! But can you get it today???

If Trump gets his way then you soon will be able to.

OTOH, how many people die because there isn't a good, cheap alternative to asbestos? More than a few I suspect, recent events notwithstanding.
It's all horses for courses. Even taking the worst theoretical figures for glyphosate you'd could conceivably end up with a scenerio where more folk would starve without its use than would eventually succumb to cancer with it (and if you live long enough cancers a given anyway).

If only everything was black and white things would be so much easier.

(I did find myself wondering how they'd decided the weedkiller was to blame for the guys cancer, was that mentioned anywhere?)

[JohnW]

........................how many people die because there isn't a good, cheap alternative to asbestos?..............

There is, and it's specified and used, certainly in building and automotive situations.

[Flinders]

........................how many people die because there isn't a good, cheap alternative to asbestos?..............

There is, and it's specified and used, certainly in building and automotive situations.

Our t of interest, what is it? I have US friends who would be interested, with the arguments going on over there.
As for bracken, on the Mynd they have been cutting it and rotting it down for compost. They charge a lot for it, I have no idea if it is any good.

[PDQ Mobile]

........................how many people die because there isn't a good, cheap alternative to asbestos?..............

There is, and it's specified and used, certainly in building and automotive situations.

Our t of interest, what is it? I have US friends who would be interested, with the arguments going on over there.
As for bracken, on the Mynd they have been cutting it and rotting it down for compost. They charge a lot for it, I have no idea if it is any good.

Masterboard is one alternative.
It's silica based.

Compost from bracken is high in potassium and the ph is surprisingly high considering where it often grows.
Bracken has been shown to be carcinogenic, the spores especially.
Well made compost is ok of course, but someone's got to make it!
Bracken is a significant problem though, estimates of land covered in bracken vary but range from 2,500 km2 upwards to 9,750 km2 in the UK.

There is an old saying in Welsh which neatly states that bracken prefers to grow on better land/soil.
Aur dan y Rhedyn
Arian dan y Eithyn
Newyn dan y Grug

(Gold under the bracken,
Silver under the gorse,
Famine under the heather)

((Bryn will forgive my Welsh I hope!))

[francovendee]

The difficulty with banning any product is often the lack of a viable alternative. I've tried a 'natural' weedkiller that was both very expensive and pretty ineffective. If you want to make it your life's work, then weeds can be controlled by hoeing and raking but ..... if you garden just to keep the place tidy it's a real chore to do.
I'm not against the banning of existing weedkillers but what else is there?
The villages near here have put up notices if the streets are maintained without the use of weedkillers. Very laudable but borders paths are often very weedy and untidy.
Before someone points it out, I'm aware the insects welcome it.

[Cyril Haearn]

There is, and it's specified and used, certainly in building and automotive situations.

Our t of interest, what is it? I have US friends who would be interested, with the arguments going on over there.
As for bracken, on the Mynd they have been cutting it and rotting it down for compost. They charge a lot for it, I have no idea if it is any good.

Masterboard is one alternative.
It's silica based.

Compost from bracken is high in potassium and the ph is surprisingly high considering where it often grows.
Bracken has been shown to be carcinogenic, the spores especially.
Well made compost is ok of course, but someone's got to make it!
Bracken is a significant problem though, estimates of land covered in bracken vary but range from 2,500 km2 upwards to 9,750 km2 in the UK.

There is an old saying in Welsh which neatly states that bracken prefers to grow on better land/soil.
Aur dan y Rhedyn
Arian dan y Eithyn
Newyn dan y Grug

(Gold under the bracken,
Silver under the gorse,
Famine under the heather)

((Bryn will forgive my Welsh I hope!))

Plus One for Welsh sayings..

Nid gwell gormod na rhy fychan
Too much is not better than too little

Pob dihareb gwir
All sayings are true

Had both in my head, but I had to check them in my little book

[kwackers]

Here's a summary in New Scientist which pretty much is what I've read about Glyphosate over the years.

New Scientist Article

(I'm assuming it's not behind a paywall, I subscribe to NS but it didn't look like I was logged in)

[Graham]

New Scientist Article

(I'm assuming it's not behind a paywall, I subscribe to NS but it didn't look like I was logged in)

This requires setting up of a FREE login.
One has to provide contact info, one way or another.
The login-by-Facebook seems particularly insidious - grabbing links to other persons.

No free lunches these days . . . .

[kwackers]

No free lunches these days . . . .

Seems not. Even the flat earth sites seem to want folk to log in these days...

I did think about trying to summarise it but without listing the various studies, who did them and what they found which would be tantamount to a largish copy and paste there doesn't seem much point.

The main points are; the vast majority (possibly all) of the folk I'd trust to do proper research found either no or very low risks from using glyphosate. Even at very high levels most studies found no effect resulting in them stating "probably not" when it came to cancer risk.
It also mentions that glyphosate doesn't damage DNA which means it has no mechanism for causing cancer and that no study found a link with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma which is what the guy had.

Of course if you're of the mind set that no chemicals should be used then you'll never be convinced (and I'm sure most of us are of that idealistic viewpoint) but we no longer live in that world and compared to the alternatives glyphosate seems like a fairly reasonable choice - just a shame plants are becoming resistant to it, which begs the question; what next?

(And that growing resistance is imo the main reason it shouldn't be available to the general public who squirt it on plants in low doses allowing some of them to survive and thus develop resistance.)

[Edit]
I missed what is probably a fairly important bit which is that the main evidence that glyphosate causes cancer came from a study in 2015 by the IARC (a branch of the WHO) which said that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic".
This study had a problem though in that they found no evidence at all for humans and inconclusive evidence in animals (and another branch of the WHO found no evidence it caused cancer.)

[Graham]

Thanks for the summary.

I recall that John Adams had a section about the difficulty of determining the "safety" of chemicals & drugs in his book : Risk.

[PDQ Mobile]

I am a little curious about which plants it is desirable to eradicate totally?
MickF wants rid of brambles, nettles and thistles for example. (We never heard what fate, if any, befell the wasps he had?!)

Those particular plant species are very useful in the wider environmental context and a couple even produce decent human food.
This is at a time when it is widely acknowledged that a great many invertebrate forms are in severe decline. Butterflies in this context most notable perhaps.

On a garden scale a bit of cutting will easily control most plants.

Oxford Ragwort a foul, really poisonous, alien invader seems to be ever more widespread however, both in fields and roadside verges.

The resistance question is just another in a long line of similar (unnecessary) ecological problems.IMV