Good old Roundup

[regwac]

Some friends recently chopped off several elm suckers of around 200 mm diameter and painted the cut surface with straight glyphosphate . Always willing to take a chance I asked if I could take some of the suckers that have arisen from the large suckers . They still had some leaves on them and interesting trunks up to about 100 mm .
Dug up in November they were potted and tucked away in a shady corner . A couple have sprouted normally , some are still to develop leaves but are still green and a few have leaves like those pictured .
One started with 'funny' leaves and now has normal leaves coming through .
I am hoping these others will recover or at least survive and give me something unusual .

[treeman]

If they have been affected by round up I would throw them away.

[Sammy D]

Things can and do grow out off it. No harm in keeping them until you know for sure if they do or dont make it.

[Rory]

If they have been affected by round up I would throw them away.

is it the chance of contamination of residual chemical in the soil that would kill the roots, which would concern you Mike? I've never used roundup, just curious. I know it is lethal on trees.

[Suomi]

Round up works through the leaves not the soil.. That's my understanding.. I may be wrong though.

[regwac]

Seems a shame to throw away perfectly good trees Mike . The glyphosphate will break down and if the damage to the tree is not fatal , it will recover . Kind of chemical pruning . Graham

[Bentod]

200mm in diameter? Are you sure?

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

[Sno]

Hi Bentod. I think what Regwac was saying was that he dug 100mm suckers that were suckering off the 200mm suckers that were suckering off the parent tree that was probably 500mm+ . Knowing Regwac he wouldn't of bothered taking the 50 mm suckers that were suckering off the 100mm suckers ,that is unless they showed some real potential . .

[kcpoole]

If they have been affected by round up I would throw them away.

Interested to hear the reasoning behind this comment too
As avid supporter of roundup I am curious

Ken

[regwac]

Sno is correct , the sucker in the picture is about 50 mm and is a 'by-catch' . Most of what I got was around the 100 mm mark. There are some large 200 mm plus stumps there and if they recover I will dig some of them . The landholder has a backhoe !
Rory and Ken , it is my understanding that roundup breaks down as it does its work and breaks down within the hour in soil .

[treeman]

I'm not sure about the recovery part, but I have seen affected plants never entirely recover. Almost as if there is genetic damage. Not necessarily die but always weak and often with distorted growth. I would never bother with a plant which has been exposed to glyphosate.
Perhaps some will recover? I have not seen it. I could be wrong....

[regwac]

This one ,the same tree pictured in the original post , is almost back to normal .

[thoglette]

As avid supporter of roundup I am curious

Certain species (e.g. roses) usually never recover from roundup "overspray", even if it's not immediately fatal. It clearly does not break down into "harmless" components as the manufacture claims - once it gets in, that's it.

What we won't know for another 50 years or so is where glysophate "research" sits on spectrum between the scandalous behaviour of tobacco/asbestos at one end and say, chocolate on the other.

Given the publicly available history of Monsanto's behaviour around GM products (e.g. RoundUp Ready Canola) and the rumours of glysophate related illnesses, I've put Round Up at the bottom of the "last resort" box.

[Starfox]

The tree is looking much better now.


To be fair glyphosate has been around for nearly 50 years already and widely used too, and for the most part is regarded as perfectly safe as long as it is used responsibly. It's connections with Monsanto have done it no favours though, environmental groups are extremely aggressive in their condemnation of every little thing Monsanto put out(rightly so too) however in this case it has taken nearly 50 years of continuous study into glyphosate with results in general declaring it safe for one dubious study to come out saying it is "probably carcinogenic" which puts it in the same category as bacon.
Now if that is the best they can come up with after 50 years it is a chance I will take.

That said this WHO report has cause numerous countries here in the EU to pull round up off the shelves altogether.
Here in Spain that report is largely ignored however they have passed new laws regarding phytosanitary clearance meaning that if I want to use Round up I need to take a 50 hour long course for the privilege of doing so, which I wont do just for my own garden. If I was a agricultural producer then I see no issue with taking such a course and am surprised there wasn't one already, but I'm not.
I have one spray pack of it left and a garden full of weeds so I need to time my hit right, after that it will be a case of you don't realise you will miss something until it is gone.

Still I think that this WHO report is only the beginning and within 10 to 20 years it will be off the shelves worldwide.

Sorry for the mini rant but having just found out why I can't buy it here I'm left rather annoyed by it.

[thoglette]

Still I think that this WHO report is only the beginning and within 10 to 20 years it will be off the shelves worldwide.

A spokeswoman from APVMA has told the ABC the review of glyphosate was taking longer than first expected.

The European Union is currently taking steps to ban glyphosate, and it has already been banned or restricted in some parts of Europe and in Sri Lanka.

Forestry workers still using cancer-linked chemical despite ongoing safety review 2016-06-13 ABC