Genetic Literacy Project: Farmers Need More Herbicide Choices

There are two things that I think just about every weed scientist can agree on, writes Andrew Kniss for The Genetic Literacy Project:

  1. herbicide resistant weeds make weed management more difficult; and
  2. the key to battling herbicide resistant weeds (or any weeds, really) is to use a diverse weed management program.

One aspect of a diverse weed management program is herbicide diversity. But this leads to the question:

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How diverse are U.S. herbicide programs?

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The diversity data suggests that herbicide resistance traits (either through biotechnology or conventional breeding methods) can either increase or decrease herbicide diversity depending on how they are used. These data don’t support the claim that herbicide resistant crops, as a whole, have made the weed resistance problem worse (or better). Glyphosate seemed to supplement alternative herbicides in corn rather than replace them, as occurred in soybean. Presumably, those alternative soybean herbicides were still available, but they were not being used.

Head on over to TheGeneticLiteracyProject.org to read Kniss’ full report.

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