Superweeds Choke Out Farm in Iowa
B. McPherson Superweeds are a new reality for N. American farmers. Weeds capable of resisting the herbicide glyphosate are sprouting in all the wrong places after years of inadvertent selection by farmers depending on chemicals to keep weeds down. Since the ‘70s when Roundup was introduced, farmers and homeowners alike have used the liquid to kill plants that they didn’t like. Mother Nature has surprises for the unwary. What seemed like a quick, cost effective solution to elimination of weeds in soy and corn fields has turned out superweeds instead. Iowa is finding more and more Palmer amaranth(pig weed) infestations. This weed is capable of putting out half a million seeds for each plant. And it’s only one of a plethora of superweeds washing back over croplands that have been sprayed with glyphosate . Glyphosate(Roundup Ready) resistant crops are genetically modified(GM) to not die when sprayed with the chemical. Palmer pigweeds can produce up to half a million se...