Glyphosate

TEA20

[quote="trévi"]20 years ago the organic gardners association of Australia declared
glyphosphate as a safe product to use in the vegi patch.quote]

Not now days.. the blok next door is an organic asparagus grower and he was telling me you carnt use it. he uses the big gas flame thrower thiny Gemmell was talking about, I can hear it from my place... a good 500mtrs away :twisted:

Food&Fish

Yea i bought one of those about 2 weeks ago about $150.00
Yes Kuda they are ok around growbeds you only need a few seconds of heat to work

RupertofOZ

Don't know how many times this question has come up before... :roll:

From a post in another thread...

Quote:

The glyphosate based-product Roundup is claimed to be the worlds biggest selling herbicide(1). It is widely thought of by users as being harmless to the environment, and virtually non-toxic to applicators and others who are exposed to it.

The acute toxicity of glyphosate itself is very low. According to the World Health Organisation, the oral LD50 in the rat of pure glyphosate is 4,230 mg/kg—or 5,600 mg/kg according to Monsanto, the developers of glyphosate(2). The low acute toxicity of glyphosate can be attributed to its biochemical mode of action on a metabolic pathway in plants (the shikimic acid pathway) which does not exist in animals(3).

There is limited evidence that when glyphosate is administered in high doses over long time periods some test animals developed chronic health effects including birth defects(4). It is extremely unlikely that users of glyphosate or members of the public would ever be exposed to such high doses and the risk of similar health effects occurring in humans is generally considered to be low.

However, while glyphosate itself may be relatively harmless, some of the products with which it is formulated have a rather less benign reputation. Marketed formulations of glyphosate generally contain a surfactant. The purpose of this is to prevent the chemical from forming into droplets and rolling off leaves which are sprayed. Some of these surfactants are serious irritants, toxic to fish, and can themselves contain contaminants which are carcinogenic to humans.

The most widely used type of surfactants used in glyphosate formulations are known as ethylated amines. POEA (polyoxyethyleneamine) has been frequently mentioned as a surfactant, but in fact it refers to a group of ethylated amine products used in glyphosate formulations. Members of this group of surfactants are significantly more toxic than glyphosate. They are serious irritants of eyes, respiratory tract and skin, and have been found to contain dioxane (not dioxin) contaminants which are suspected of being carcinogenic. Accordingly, the UN FAO has set standards of 1 part per million (ppm) for levels of the contaminant 1,4 dioxane which may be present in POEA surfactants.

KudaPucat

RupertofOZ wrote:

Don't know how many times this question has come up before... :roll:

And yet a search turned up no threads with glyphosate in the title.
So I thought I'd start on despite being almost certain of it's dangers, and having read joel's opinion regarding surfactants in another thread.
A thread dedicated to glyphosate- a more common name than roundup seemed a good idea to me.
So roll your eyes if you wish.

stevesmartt

Boiling water... with or without salt added. I poured it on an ants nest once and totalled the grass for ages.

ivansng

Some years ago, I tried using vinegar to kill weeds... do not dilute, just straight from the bottle and into the sprayer... It is not as effective as roundup or similar glyphosate, but it does work... Googled it... I think vinegar is quite safe for fishes right??

I think the trick was to flood the plant on a hot day... I am considering using it again around my tank...

Jono

I have a vine thats comin under the fence from my next door neighbours and its growing right behind my ft and gb between it and the fence.
Tried cutting if off, but it keeps coming back. Is there anything that i could use thats safe for fish and won't harm the main plant, but stop it from coming back on my side?

KudaPucat

The only thing I know of is vigilance jono :-(

I'm sorry bu I think you'll either have to keep cutting it back, or seal the fence in such a way that the vine can't penetrate.

TCLynx

Around the system I would be more likely to use the salt, vinegar, boiling water or simply smothering the weeds.

Of course spraying vinegar you wanna be careful not to let it drift onto your desirable plants and too much vinegar in the AP system would cause some pH bouncing that would be bad for fish/plants/and bacteria so don't go dumping the bottle into the AP system. If you can get stronger than the normal 5% vinegar, it is very effective for weed control but be careful when spraying as it can burn skin/eyes etc.

There are many things about Glyophosphate (sp?) that we don't know for sure. We do know that it is definitely not as harmless as the company's original claims say it was.

Greg C

Try 1 cup of salt dissolved in 1 litre of vinegar and brushed on the leaves very liberally. I have been trialling it and have even managed to kill some oxalis with it. I also added a little detergent to help it stick on the leaves better.

Chatty

There are formulations of glyphosate that have adjuvant packages built into them that are suitable for use around aquatic areas. Not to say that too much of it won't do anything but it will build a big margin for error into the use of glyph if you want to.

Chatty

Jono wrote:

I have a vine thats comin under the fence from my next door neighbours and its growing right behind my ft and gb between it and the fence.
Tried cutting if off, but it keeps coming back. Is there anything that i could use thats safe for fish and won't harm the main plant, but stop it from coming back on my side?

Jono, you could try cutting it off and then immediately brushing the cut surface with neat glyph. the plant will suck it back in and it will stunt that sucker.

Chatty

desertrat

I tried using Glyphosate (Roundup) several years ago, never again I used less than the recommended dosage on the advice of the industrial chemist who did a lot of research and development on this products, while it certainly knocked the couch grass back for some time there was a visible sign of poor health and sickness in most of my fruit tree's. I was careful with the application and the conditions that I applied this POISON. I reckon the best way to eliminate weeds is by consistent mulching and lots of patience, don't pull out the grass/weeds that you want to eliminate as this is a form of pruning and encourages further growth, as soon as a little sucker shows its head through the mulch cover it again and again until the plant exhausts itself lots of thick layers of thick newspaper with some straw is always good
Like I said before patience is necessary it took me nearly two years to eliminate couch from a small block
Good luck

timmy

[quote="earthbound"][quote="trévi"]20 years ago the organic gardners association of Australia declared
glyphosphate as a safe product to use in the vegi patch.
[/quote]
Studies in Denmark found that their ground water was contaminated with it and banned many of its uses. The US EPA claims glyphosate is persistent in the environment.

According to a June 2005 report in Environmental Health Perspectives, Roundup was found to be "...toxic to human placental...cells within 18 hours [of exposure], with concentrations lower than those found in agricultural use," and, "Roundup is always more toxic than its active ingredient." The researchers also found glyphosate and Roundup effects on sexual hormones at very low levels. This suggests that "dilution with other ingredients in Roundup may, in fact, facilitate glyphosate's hormonal impacts." Source: Organic Consumers Association.[/quote]

i'd love to see those studies joel, can you link? everything credible i can find on glyphosate shows it is only as toxic as common table salt. http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/SO/sodium_chloride.html and http://www.inchem.org/documents/pds/pds ... _e.htm#2.0 it is worth noting they mention some formulations were as low as 1950mg/kg, but that is still a hell of a high dose.
people have tried to commit suicide by drinking 500ml bottle of the concerntrated stuff and only ended up giving themselfs a sore stomach (see section 2.2.2 of the PDS from the inchem site)
as for break down, it binds to soil and it's 50% gone in 174 days http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/ex ... e-ext.html

if the other ingredidents in some formula's are a problem, i'm open to that. but lets name them and discuss seperately to glyphosate so we are talking about apples and apples.

chillidude

Timmy

Rupe did name them, a little further back up this page;

ethylated amines - POEA (polyoxyethyleneamine) - a carcinogenic surfactant.

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Glyphosate

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