what is this grass called

[dave1949]

Here is an interesting site:
http://www.weedscience.org/Summary/home.aspx

It is a link from tcreely's link: Why Glyphosate Should Be Banned - A Review of its Hazards to Health and the Environment - PermacultureNews.org

In the case of phragmites: Phragmites - Native or Not there is a native and a more aggressive non-native subspecies.

Taking the big picture, the introduction of non-native species has exploded around the globe. Weeds develop herbicide resistance. Roundup Ready GM seeds have not decreased the use of herbicides. I don't trust or respect the Monsanto's of agriculture. They are evil and litigious. How much has Monsanto earned while spawning herbicide tolerant weeds?

The whole thing, imported invasives, various types of poisons, genetic splicing-in of chemicals that we later ingest, is just crazy. It is a money making spiral without end because it generates its own next problem to solve. Meanwhile we are inundated with man-made chemical substances, many of which are found to be harmful after it is too late.

Reaching for the Roundup or other miracle of chemistry is like being an alcoholic, you think you need it and it tastes so good--while it is killing you slowly. It is not a sustainable strategy.

 

[wngsprd]

Phragmites is an invasive weed around our coastal areas, out-competing with wild rice which is better for the ducks.

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

So Dave, whats your plan "B"? As a country we raise about 100 million acres each of corn and beans. If we can't use glyphsate as you suggest what do we control weeds with? Organic farming? Really? 100 million acres. Mechanical cultivating? Really? Do we go back to Eradicane, Aatrex, Atrazine, even Furadane for bugs? Talk about safe.

 

[farmer2009]

There were chemically resistant weeds before roundup. Southern IL has had ALS and PPO resistant Waterhemp for years. For many years roundup was there best control. Because of a lack of BMP's the Waterhemp is now atleast tolerant to roundup. The use of the same chemical class over and over again is what leads to this tolerance and then resistance. Multiple modes of action is required to prevent this.
Plus some plants are able to addapt faster thus being more likely to survive than others. You must remeber a plants number one goal in life is to reproduce (make seeds).
Now on the producing food without chemicals. Do you like your movies? Your internet? Your TBN? Your automobile? Your tractor? If as a country we go back to food production without chemicals and GMO's you will be forced to choose between these things and eating. Why? Cost! Unless your the top 1%. Food cost will be outrageous. Think about it. The USA produces 60% of the worlds food. Do we have 60% of the worlds population? How long must you work each year to earn enough for your yearly food bill? Taxes? Now think back 100 years before chemicals. How long did those folks have to work? In some cases it took 70-80% of a families income just to pay for food.

 

[dave1949]

So Dave, whats your plan "B"? As a country we raise about 100 million acres each of corn and beans. If we can't use glyphsate as you suggest what do we control weeds with? Organic farming? Really? 100 million acres. Mechanical cultivating? Really? Do we go back to Eradicane, Aatrex, Atrazine, even Furadane for bugs? Talk about safe.

I have no perfect Plan B, I do have some thoughts around your post and farmer2009's post.

The first questions are: is what we are doing now sustainable, and why are we doing those things? I'd say no, they are not sustainable, and we are doing them primarily due to population pressures.

The unwanted side effects of intensive agriculture are growing. I believe some of those chemicals you named can be found in contaminated water wells. The toxic algae in Lake Erie is another example. The large aquifers in the Midwest that supply irrigation water are being depleted much faster than they are being replenished. There are limits to every system; agriculture is not exempted from limits by some magic.

The 200 million acres for corn and soybeans represent a huge sterile monoculture largely devoid of the normal flora and fauna. As such those areas are a loss of the habitat required to sustain anything approaching normalcy in terms of supporting various species. Add in the land lost to development and it amounts to huge pressures on existing habitat plus the degradation of what habitat is left via fragmentation, pollution, and human disturbances.

Ethanol production accounts for 27% of the US corn crop. Even if we thought ethanol production was a net good thing, its production originally was driven by a political and economic need to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources. You see the trade-off happening there: corn ethanol is cheaper than military dominance (war avoidance). As it turns out, neither wars nor ethanol are desirable. This is a good example of "bargaining down" where we accept declining standards in the face of pressures, in this case the pressure to have an economical energy supply to serve a growing population.

As farmer2009 points out, and I agree, food would cost more under more sustainable practices. To be accurate though, whatever costs are incurred to human health and to the environment need to be added to the cost of your box of Cheerios or NY strip steak. There is no free lunch. The costs can be shifted around, obscured, subsidized, listed as endangered, etc., but they don't just disappear.

If I could have a Plan, I would focus on population first. Population is the driver for most of these maladies. We should stop population growing policies at home and abroad. We should reward population decline.

Since I don't have much faith in that working, my second choice of Plan would be to complete the ongoing transformation of "food" into primarily a batch vat growing system. No insect pests, no weeds, recycled water, the weather and seasons don't matter, and net energy needs could be lower. Soylent Green? Sure, but that is where we will end up eventually without population management.

Grow about two dozen varieties of algae or whatever and make food from that. Yuck, but much of what is on the grocery shelves is highly processed food already. There is dang little natural purity left in our food chain anyways. Just finish the job quickly and skip over the destruction of the remaining healthy earth through resource depletion and pollution.

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

Thanks for responding Dave. First lets look at what we know and what we don't know. We don't know the long term effects of glyphsate herbicide, but it was developed in 1970 and 44 years later all we have is suspicion, no proof. We do know that the current world population is about 7 billion and we are on track to reach 9 billion or more by 2050. Most of that population is in the poorest countries, Africa and Asia. How do you feed them? I don't see a cultural change in 34 years from corn and rice to algae "fritters" and batch vat growing. The improved effectiveness of herbicides paved the way for no-till farming which greatly reduced erosion and protected topsoil and the environment. The idea of large scale crop production causing an area to be "devoid of normal flora and fauna" is simply untrue. Kentucky has a larger white tailed deer herd than at any time in its history, the same with wild turkey. In the last ten years we've added a bobcat season, a black bear season, a sand hill crane season and have the largest elk heard east of the Missisippi on reclaimed strip coal mines. It doesn't sound like a "dirty" environment to me, it sounds like normal flora and fauna are adaptable. As long as humans have raised crops (and animals) the have manipulated or modified them. If we save the seed from the plants that have traits we like to plant next year and eat the undesirables we modified the genetics. Truthfully there are other ways to produce crops but not on the large scale that we need at the price people can afford.

 

[dave1949]

Thanks for responding Dave. First lets look at what we know and what we don't know. We don't know the long term effects of glyphsate herbicide, but it was developed in 1970 and 44 years later all we have is suspicion, no proof. We do know that the current world population is about 7 billion and we are on track to reach 9 billion or more by 2050. Most of that population is in the poorest countries, Africa and Asia. How do you feed them? I don't see a cultural change in 34 years from corn and rice to algae "fritters" and batch vat growing. The improved effectiveness of herbicides paved the way for no-till farming which greatly reduced erosion and protected topsoil and the environment. The idea of large scale crop production causing an area to be "devoid of normal flora and fauna" is simply untrue. Kentucky has a larger white tailed deer herd than at any time in its history, the same with wild turkey. In the last ten years we've added a bobcat season, a black bear season, a sand hill crane season and have the largest elk heard east of the Missisippi on reclaimed strip coal mines. It doesn't sound like a "dirty" environment to me, it sounds like normal flora and fauna are adaptable. As long as humans have raised crops (and animals) the have manipulated or modified them. If we save the seed from the plants that have traits we like to plant next year and eat the undesirables we modified the genetics. Truthfully there are other ways to produce crops but not on the large scale that we need at the price people can afford.

If 98% (say) of the plants in a corn field are corn, then by definition that is not a normal complement of flora. Whatever fauna depends on that missing flora is not going to be able to make a living. A current example is said to be the lack of milkweed which is necessary for Monarch butterflies to reproduce. How many species of plants and animals would you expect to find in a typical 60 acre un-farmed and undisturbed plot compared to a corn field?

Six or eight game species do not an ecosystem make. The bear population likely tracks the deer herd size to a degree. Bobcats are fairly tolerant of human presence. Deer populations are healthy in many non-farmed areas too--too healthy actually which indicates an out of balance ecosystem.

The Lake Erie toxic algae is fed by phosphorus run-off from fields, and by human sewerage. The Maumee river runs from Ft Wayne, IN (IIRC) to Lake Erie at Toledo, OH. In spite of no-till, that river runs as brown with fine clay sediments as it ever did when I was a kid in the 1950's, and it is delivering whatever is soluble in fields, towns and residential areas to the lake.

I don't think I explained the cost issue very well; that you can have apparently historically very cheap food, but not without shifting and accumulating costs in other areas. For example, if the toxic algae is addressed by limiting fertilizers, which lowers yield, which increases the price of corn production, then that is a cost that is tied directly to a farming practice. It may even put some growers out of business if their costs rise too high in comparison to other areas. That is an example of reaching a limit: the all-in costs (in the form of fertilizer limits) exceed the profitability.

On the other hand, if we just live with the occasional water quality issue, people buy drinking water, restaurants close, groceries throw away anything that is watered, fish die--where and how do those costs appear in a box of cornflakes or bag of chicken feed? What total accumulated price tag would you place on the negative effects of the past 40-50 years evolution of agricultural chemicals? They are relatively easy to see in hindsight, and I believe we are still racking up new costs that just aren't so clear yet.

Feeling responsible for feeding 7-9 billion people is sort of a loaded issue. If enough low-cost food is put in the pipeline--while ignoring the growing cost of negative side effects, and approaching and clearly exceeding some limits in the process, we are enabling that population growth at the expense of everyone now and in the future. That is not going to end well unless you like algae fritters (good name ).

I'm not advocating cutting off the food supply next week so we can go back to farming of 50 years ago, but policies need to be put in place that actively encourage countries to manage their population growth or gradually face the consequences of their choices. There is nothing wrong, and a lot right, with determining we are better off in the long run with sustainable and less intensive practices, and in any case there are limits to how intensive those practices can be while still maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Mechanical cultivation for weed control, and a fair amount of insect picking by hand worked for several thousand years and a higher percentage of populations were involved in food production. I fail to see the evil in that. It sounds better than government subsidies to farms and foods stamps to buy the farm output.

 

[Jstpssng]

Just mow it to control it. Everytime you use glyphosate you are polluting the ground with toxins that kill stuff, animal, bugs/bees/birds.
Why Glyphosate Should Be Banned - A Review of its Hazards to Health and the Environment - PermacultureNews.org
http://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/impacts_glyphosate.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/pdfs/factsheets/soc/glyphosa.pdf

It is not something I'd want to see in my drinking water, no matter how small a trace.

While I understand your philosophy, mowing actually can spread it if care isn't taken to clean your equipment afterwards. I find it out in the woods in places where it can only have come from forestry or (powerline) construction equipment.

 

[Jstpssng]

If 98% (say) of the plants in a corn field are corn, then by definition that is not a normal complement of flora. Whatever fauna depends on that missing flora is not going to be able to make a living. A current example is said to be the lack of milkweed which is necessary for Monarch butterflies to reproduce. How many species of plants and animals would you expect to find in a typical 60 acre un-farmed and undisturbed plot compared to a corn field?

Six or eight game species do not an ecosystem make. The bear population likely tracks the deer herd size to a degree. Bobcats are fairly tolerant of human presence. Deer populations are healthy in many non-farmed areas too--too healthy actually which indicates an out of balance ecosystem.

The Lake Erie toxic algae is fed by phosphorus run-off from fields, and by human sewerage. The Maumee river runs from Ft Wayne, IN (IIRC) to Lake Erie at Toledo, OH. In spite of no-till, that river runs as brown with fine clay sediments as it ever did when I was a kid in the 1950's, and it is delivering whatever is soluble in fields, towns and residential areas to the lake.

I don't think I explained the cost issue very well; that you can have apparently historically very cheap food, but not without shifting and accumulating costs in other areas. For example, if the toxic algae is addressed by limiting fertilizers, which lowers yield, which increases the price of corn production, then that is a cost that is tied directly to a farming practice. It may even put some growers out of business if their costs rise too high in comparison to other areas. That is an example of reaching a limit: the all-in costs (in the form of fertilizer limits) exceed the profitability.

On the other hand, if we just live with the occasional water quality issue, people buy drinking water, restaurants close, groceries throw away anything that is watered, fish die--where and how do those costs appear in a box of cornflakes or bag of chicken feed? What total accumulated price tag would you place on the negative effects of the past 40-50 years evolution of agricultural chemicals? They are relatively easy to see in hindsight, and I believe we are still racking up new costs that just aren't so clear yet.

Feeling responsible for feeding 7-9 billion people is sort of a loaded issue. If enough low-cost food is put in the pipeline--while ignoring the growing cost of negative side effects, and approaching and clearly exceeding some limits in the process, we are enabling that population growth at the expense of everyone now and in the future. That is not going to end well unless you like algae fritters (good name ).

I'm not advocating cutting off the food supply next week so we can go back to farming of 50 years ago, but policies need to be put in place that actively encourage countries to manage their population growth or gradually face the consequences of their choices. There is nothing wrong, and a lot right, with determining we are better off in the long run with sustainable and less intensive practices, and in any case there are limits to how intensive those practices can be while still maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Mechanical cultivation for weed control, and a fair amount of insect picking by hand worked for several thousand years and a higher percentage of populations were involved in food production. I fail to see the evil in that. It sounds better than government subsidies to farms and foods stamps to buy the farm output.

While I understand everything which you say Dave, (and agree with some if not much of it) the bottom line is that being fed in our society today has become taken for granted as breathing and having clean water to drink. Given the choice between pulling weeds and picking bugs vs collecting food stamps, most will pick the latter. Otherwise they would be out working doing whatever they can. Why do you think that migrant workers harvest so much of our crop?

Your comments remind me of someone I worked with in the orchard 30+ years ago... he came from money yet lived in a one room shack with a hand pump out front and an outhouse... He couldn't understand why the owner was willing to pay $1200 for a mower (keep in mind this was 30+ years ago) when common laborers could do it by hand.

It just so happened that there was a patch of raspberry bushes growing under the trees, where a mower couldn't reach without knocking fruit off of the trees.
they handed him a scythe and put him to work... by lunchtime the first day he said "I can see why you want a mower."

 

[Jstpssng]

If 98% (say) of the plants in a corn field are corn, then by definition that is not a normal complement of flora. Whatever fauna depends on that missing flora is not going to be able to make a living. A current example is said to be the lack of milkweed which is necessary for Monarch butterflies to reproduce. How many species of plants and animals would you expect to find in a typical 60 acre un-farmed and undisturbed plot compared to a corn field?

Six or eight game species do not an ecosystem make. The bear population likely tracks the deer herd size to a degree. Bobcats are fairly tolerant of human presence. Deer populations are healthy in many non-farmed areas too--too healthy actually which indicates an out of balance ecosystem.

The Lake Erie toxic algae is fed by phosphorus run-off from fields, and by human sewerage. The Maumee river runs from Ft Wayne, IN (IIRC) to Lake Erie at Toledo, OH. In spite of no-till, that river runs as brown with fine clay sediments as it ever did when I was a kid in the 1950's, and it is delivering whatever is soluble in fields, towns and residential areas to the lake.

I don't think I explained the cost issue very well; that you can have apparently historically very cheap food, but not without shifting and accumulating costs in other areas. For example, if the toxic algae is addressed by limiting fertilizers, which lowers yield, which increases the price of corn production, then that is a cost that is tied directly to a farming practice. It may even put some growers out of business if their costs rise too high in comparison to other areas. That is an example of reaching a limit: the all-in costs (in the form of fertilizer limits) exceed the profitability.

On the other hand, if we just live with the occasional water quality issue, people buy drinking water, restaurants close, groceries throw away anything that is watered, fish die--where and how do those costs appear in a box of cornflakes or bag of chicken feed? What total accumulated price tag would you place on the negative effects of the past 40-50 years evolution of agricultural chemicals? They are relatively easy to see in hindsight, and I believe we are still racking up new costs that just aren't so clear yet.

Feeling responsible for feeding 7-9 billion people is sort of a loaded issue. If enough low-cost food is put in the pipeline--while ignoring the growing cost of negative side effects, and approaching and clearly exceeding some limits in the process, we are enabling that population growth at the expense of everyone now and in the future. That is not going to end well unless you like algae fritters (good name ).

I'm not advocating cutting off the food supply next week so we can go back to farming of 50 years ago, but policies need to be put in place that actively encourage countries to manage their population growth or gradually face the consequences of their choices. There is nothing wrong, and a lot right, with determining we are better off in the long run with sustainable and less intensive practices, and in any case there are limits to how intensive those practices can be while still maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Mechanical cultivation for weed control, and a fair amount of insect picking by hand worked for several thousand years and a higher percentage of populations were involved in food production. I fail to see the evil in that. It sounds better than government subsidies to farms and foods stamps to buy the farm output.

While I understand everything which you say Dave, (and agree with some if not much of it) the bottom line is that being fed in our society today has become taken for granted as breathing and having clean water to drink. Given the choice between pulling weeds and picking bugs vs collecting food stamps, most will pick the latter. Otherwise they would be out working doing whatever they can. Why do you think that migrant workers harvest so much of our crop?

Your comments remind me of someone I worked with in the orchard 30+ years ago... he came from money yet lived in a one room shack with a hand pump out front and an outhouse... He couldn't understand why the owner was willing to pay $1200 for a mower (keep in mind this was 30+ years ago) when common laborers could do it by hand.

It just so happened that there was a patch of raspberry bushes growing under the trees, where a mower couldn't reach without knocking fruit off of the trees.
they handed him a scythe and put him to work... by lunchtime the first day he said "I can see why you want a mower."