11-2 IAN Darwin weeds

  It feels like the noose is tightening around our neck and in this case the noose is woven out of weeds. This is David Sparks and scientists are saying that glyphosate resistant weeds that have evolved are being attributed to a system that is not well managed. That is the opinion of many weed scientists including extension weed scientist and expert, Michael Owen who incidentally has an acerbic sense of  expressing himself. “ Growers over the last decade and a half have fallen into the siren song of simplicity and convenience. A gentleman by the name of Chuck Darwin, about 100 years ago, talked about herbicide resistant weeds.  Darwin was talking about herbicide resistant giant ragweed, herbicide resistant mares tail and the fact that no matter what one does if one does a tactic or a strategy to manage weeds or anything else for that matter, and that’s all that one does is use a specific strategy or tactic, ultimately mother nature will provide the opportunity for that pest, that weed to no longer respond to that tactic or strategy. The reason that we have gotten ourselves into this situation and the growers found that glyphosate was the way to go, it was easy it was convenient, that is wrong. We do not use herbicides to kill weeds. We use herbicides to  protect crop yield which means that we need to use a more diverse set of tools to  protect the crop yield early in the season and late in the season, we cannot do that with a post-emergent product.

Owen goes on to say that truthfully, if farmers were to learn how to manage weeds, there would be no need to manage resistance.