Better Living Through Chemistry?

[wdfifteen]

The local farm family has a 100 year legacy of farming this area. It is a dynasty and they till 5000 to 10000 acres depending on leases etc. Judging by the amount of chemicals they use they must own a lot of stock in Monsanto. I watched the field across the road from us. It's about 500 acres. In the fall they planted rye in what had been a soybean field. I thought, "Good, no fall plowing - great for the soil and controls erosion." In late April they sprayed glyphosate (Roundup) on the rye to kill it. Then planted Roundup Ready soybeans, then another application of glyphosate, and now they are over there spraying more chemicals on the beans. It's probably a fungicide mixed with something else, probably another post-emergence herbicide. Whatever it is, it makes the plants look like they are dying for about a week. Last year they had a crop duster plane spraying fungicide a few weeks before harvest.
None of this stuff drifts across the road in quantities that seem to affect our garden, but I'm sure we are getting trace amounts.

[masraum]

That sucks.

I assume it's what they've got to do to stay afloat in farming.

[cockerpunk]

i mean capitalism demands infinite growth always:

[stevej37]

I made my parents real proud when I came home from my first college year 1n 1972 wearing a t-shirt with your thread title..
The white pill with 714 on it didn't help.


Round-up is fairly safe other than spray drift (like you mentioned). Flowers will be the first affected...they are have no resistance to Glyphosate.
Round-Up is dissipated as soon as it touched the ground...it only affects plants that are green and growing.

The other spraying, if it includes Atrazine or other restricted chemicals, are watched very closely for mis-use.
The chemicals can only be purchased by a licensed applicator with the proper testing.
They are recorded as to quantity and acres applied for each year. They are expensive and handled carefully.

Homeowners are the problem for over-application.

[911 Rod]

Chemicals make you go hmm. We hate them, but probably need them.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

RFD TV is all about the various chemical manufacturers and the performance of their products be it plant or animal. Its about yield, not quality.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Chemicals make you go hmm. We hate them, but probably need them.

We hate them when they hurt us...

[Rusty Heap]

Better Living through Chemical Warfare I say.

I buy Roundup and Crossbow 41% concentrate in 2.5 gallon jugs to maintain my 5 parked out acres.


All you city folk with a 10x12' "lawn" you can mow with a weedeater and 6'x8' red lava rock planting bed in front of your duplex need not apply.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Chemicals make you go hmm. We hate them, but probably need them.

Yes, they come in handy. I bought two gallons of 18% glyphosate two years ago for my 5 acres ( $60 then). Still have enough to last another year.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by stevej37

Round-up is fairly safe other than spray drift (like you mentioned).

There is a video somewhere on the interwebs of a Roundup rep telling a room full of farmers that (paraphrasing here) "Roundup is so safe you could drink it." Some smartass brought a drinking glass up to the podium. The rep refused to drink any.

Originally Posted by stevej37

Round-Up is dissipated as soon as it touched the ground...it only affects plants that are green and growing.

And yet there are people who swear you can spray it on the roots of plants to keep them from coming back. Someone here on this board "corrected" me about that.

Originally Posted by stevej37

Homeowners are the problem for over-application.

After witnessing the farmer across the road, I'm not sure that is true.

[Arizona_928]

Once you get on the Frankenstein seed, it’s hard to get off.

[LWJ]

On a positive note, I was talking with a relative who farms 4800 acres in the Willamette Valley the other day. He has a GPS location gizmo that uses 19 or so satellites. He says there is a SUB 1" overlap for the 90' spray boom.

Which means, waaaay less crap for waste and poison.

Yay.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by LWJ

On a positive note, I was talking with a relative who farms 4800 acres in the Willamette Valley the other day. He has a GPS location gizmo that uses 19 or so satellites. He says there is a SUB 1" overlap for the 90' spray boom.

Which means, waaaay less crap for waste and poison.

Yay.

Weird way to justify a gmo that can’t be killed by a poison that will kill all plants and cause cancer.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by masraum

That sucks.

I assume it's what they've got to do to stay afloat in farming.

I don't think "staying afloat" is the problem. Corporate farmers get plenty of subsidies, supposedly to insure our food supply. The problem is the bulk of the subsidies go to big time corporate farms and not to your local produce farmer. If the 5**** should hit the fan, we'll still have ethanol for fuel and grain to feed cattle, but local fruit and vegetable farmers will be SOL.

[GH85Carrera]

I use roundup to kill weeds in the flowerbeds and the concrete areas. I have a professional come spry the yard for weeds in the Bermuda grass. He comes four times per year.



My wife is master gardener, and loves flowers and plants stuff to attract bees, bumble bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and any pollen eater. We had so may Monarch butterflies last year it was kinda freaky mowing the yard and have dozens of butterflies swarming around me. Knowing the can't bite or sting helps, but when they get in my face it its freaky.

We have many dozens of various types of butterflies make a chrysalis and hatch into butterflies.



This purple bush had so many bees on it it sounded like an overloaded transformer. It was buzzing. We found local beekeeper that came and took a part of that bush to plant at his house. He gave us some fresh raw honey.

Our Koi pond has toad orgies every spring and into the summer. We have round four of tadpoles right now. The Koi eat a lot of the tadpoles. We end up with a few dozen tiny toads each year. And lots of other native wildlife.



Yea, we use chemicals to control weeds.

[creaturecat]

corporate farms = price fixing. in Canuckistan. ...... land of the oligopoly.

[Seahawk]

We can't scale in my area for a "corporate farm" to be attractive (I am sure there is a metric), but we have to deal with the big suppliers at every turn.

One of the reasons I started leasing my land rather than share-cropping, machine hire, etc. is that it is difficult to stay ahead of the price curve at 70 acres for any piece of the farm cost center: seeds, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, etc.

I do work with the local ag folks on soil and conservation plans, which we (including the leasee who has been working this place since I bought it 30 years ago) follow.

James, the old hippie who leases the farm, and I have been friends for a long time.
His family works about a 1000 acres total in Southern Maryland and he has one of the largest excavation companies in the area, which pays the freight.

Complete T-One line between us in age, attitude and humor.

There are a lot of moving parts in farming...it is not all corporate, at least here.

[wdfifteen]

We used a lot of fuel keeping weeds down when I was a kid on the farm.
Corn and beans started with running a rotary hoe over the field when the plants were about 2-3" high, then digging weeds out with a cultivator at 6 inches tall, then another pass with the cultivator when they were a foot tall. On our small farm we planted and cultivated two rows at a time, so lots of passes across the field.
Burning all that gas and diesel was too good for the environment either.

[speeder]

Now I’m curious about how all of the organic farmers who grow most of the food I eat control weeds and insects(?) Do they just let the bugs have a certain percentage of the yield or what?

I’m a city guy and obviously know nothing about farming, so it’s an honest question. I’m thinking that there are less toxic solutions but they are more expensive.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by speeder

Now I’m curious about how all of the organic farmers who grow most of the food I eat control weeds and insects(?) Do they just let the bugs have a certain percentage of the yield or what?

The rules governing "organic" farming are very, rightfully so, difficult qualifications to attain.

We looked at a number of organic options for our farm since we are about the right size, no farms directly around us for over-spray, good local markets for organic "stuff" and the weather in our micro-environment is excellent in term of winds and temperature.

We looked at hay, spices, vineyard, tree/fruit, etc.

The cost drivers for organic food is, as mentioned before, qualifying to be an organic farm (at least in Maryland), touch labor, infrastructure and access to markets kept us on the spray and pray regime with corn, wheat and soybeans.

I still use a form of Round-up for specific applications but we have dedicated sprayers for non-toxic, plant based sprays my wife prefers.

In California, the climate helps dramatically in terms of, well, everything.