The ApocaDocs Logo: the Deaths-head Jester

About:
[The Project]
[The ApocaDocs]
[Equal Share]
The Six Scenarios:
[Species Collapse]
[Infectious Disease]
[Climate Chaos]
[Resource Depletion]
[Biology Breach]
[Recovery]
Explore:

Play:

It's weekly, funny, and free!

SEARCH

More than 6,000 stories!

A great gift
for crisis deniers!


The ApocaDocs have a Book!
Humoring the Horror of the
Converging Emergencies
94 color pages
$24.99 now $15!
Or read FREE online!




Twitter




Ping this story
in social media:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
NowPublic
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon

Posted Tue Aug 23 2011: from Mother Jones:
USDA Scientist: Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide Damages Soil http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1314130286
The problem goes beyond the "superweed" phenomenon that I've written about recently: the fact that farmers are using so much Roundup, on so much acreage, that weeds are developing resistance to it, forcing farmers to resort to highly toxic "pesticide cocktails." What Roundup is doing aboveground may be a stroll through the meadow compared to its effect below. According to USDA scientist Robert Kremer, who spoke at a conference last week, Roundup may also be damaging soil--a sobering thought, given that it's applied to hundreds of millions of acres of prime farmland in the United States and South America. Here's a Reuters account of Kremer's presentation: The heavy use of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide appears to be causing harmful changes in soil and potentially hindering yields of the genetically modified crops that farmers are cultivating, a US government scientist said on Friday. Repeated use of the chemical glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide, impacts the root structure of plants, and 15 years of research indicates that the chemical could be causing fungal root disease, said Bob Kremer, a microbiologist with the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.... McNeill explains that glyphosate is a chelating agent, which means it clamps onto molecules that are valuable to a plant, like iron, calcium, manganese, and zinc.... The farmers' increased use of Roundup is actually harming their crops, according to McNeill, because it is killing micronutrients in the soil that they need, a development that has been documented in several scientific papers by the nation's leading experts in the field.
[Read more stories about: GMOs, herbicide runoff, topsoil depletion, contamination, holyshit]
This item will appear in our PANIQuiz!

New!:
No reader quips yet -- be the first!

Got a PaniQuip?

Your Quip (limit 140 characters, no links, just wit):

First name:

The text shown in the Web image to the right:


We reserve the right to reuse, remove, or refuse any entry.

'Doc Michael says:
100,000,000 acres here, 100,000,000 acres there... pretty soon we're talking about real damage!

NEXT>
More stories:
  • Report Offers Framework To Guide EPA On Incorporating Sustainability In Its Decision Making
  • "Politics cannot deliver on what science requires": SA Foreign Minister
  • (USDA Scientist: Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide Damages Soil)
  • Nickel nanoparticles may contribute to lung cancer
  • Jon Huntsman Comes Out Swinging Against GOP Rivals

  • Want to explore more?
    Try the PaniCloud!
    Copyright 2010 The Apocadocs.com