There’s a formulation of Preen for vegetable gardens that’s supposed to be entirely made from corn gluten, but the active ingredient in the other (main?) type of Preen is trifluralin, a pre-emergent herbicide. Not what you want if you’re interested in self-sowing of desirable plants.
This is a confused and largely inaccurate statement.
Roundup (glyphosate) is a nonselective herbicide; thus it cannot be used on lawns. There is an herbicide product containing dicamba sold under the trade name Roundup For Lawns that is intended for killing weeds in lawns, but does not contain glyphosate.
Herbicides may be viewed as undesirable for environmental reasons, but do not make lawns “sick” or more water-dependent.
Incidentally, people who consider themselves environmentalists use glyphosate to eliminate “exotic invasives”, so they would take issue with your blanket denunciation of the product.
Please educate me. I am willing to learn. I have seen dudes going around, using a pint of the crap on a dandelion growing in a crack. Just use a gardeners knife if you must.
And sure, there can be commercial, professional uses- although still over used.
We have very little lawn and have converted a lot of our space to growing food. We try to be as organic as possible and do a metric shit ton of manual weeding. But there are noxious weeds that cannot be eradicated or even knocked back through mechanical means. Spot spraying is sometimes needed to keep them at bay. We aren’t out in our little bit of lawn spraying dandelions.
Yes, I know that the common spray Roundup is not used on lawns, but as you said it’s cousin is. Still they are both herbicides.
The common lawn weed killer does exactly that. A healthy grassland or yard contains many species. My yard has at least 4 species of grass, 4 species of clover, dandelions, plantain, and others. I have not used herbicides or insecticides since I moved in. I used fertilizer once in 5 years. I use less water than my neighbors monoculture lawns, and they spray weedkiller, insecticide and fertilizer at least once a year, every year. Yet my lawn is lush, green and soft to walk on, and a place for bees- which are of course killed by my neighbors spraying. The clover really helps keep a lawn healthy.
1. Increased fragility 2. Nutrient drain on soil 3. Requiring constant intervention against Nature 4. Damaging to other organisms … Increased fragility
In a monoculture, because you only have one organism growing, it’s all-or-nothing. A disease that targets one plant won’t have much impact in a rainforest with lots of diversity, but it could wipe out everything in a monoculture. … On our lawn, a grass disease, or extreme weather conditions such as drought, will kill all the grass, as there aren’t any resistant or tolerant species.
"Round up and similar herbicides should not be allowed for personal use. …
There is literally no reason for herbicides on a personal use level."
Wait - Are you talking about strictly lawn usage? Personal usage does not always equal lawns (see my post directly above yours). Sounds like you have a gripe about chemical usage on lawns.
Yes, and driveways and such. If you have a large home garden, I am a maybe. So, as long as you are careful, that could work. But spraying your lawn once or twice a year with “weed killer” herbicide or using a fucking pint to take down one dandelion is crazy.
Roundup and Roundup For Lawns are not “cousins”. They’re completely different products with different use and safety profiles.
I have long had mixed species lawns and for many years have not watered, fertilized or used any herbicides on them. But I do not engage in uninformed condemnation of those who do.
We would need evidence of this beyond an offhand “of course”.
In any event, turf in general provides little food for bees. They’d be a lot better off if you dug up most or all of your lawn and replaced it with flowering herbaceous and woody plants. I have greatly expanded such plantings at the expense of turf over the years.
Seems to me that weed and feed granules, not sprays, are the typical way that people manage lawn weeds. And the ad you linked to shows maybe a tablespoon of glyphosate being applied to a single driveway weed, not a “pint”. Let’s see, 32 tablespoons to a pint…yep, just a bit of exaggeration there.
Anti-GMOers are similarly known for vastly exaggerating the amount of glyphosate used on farm fields.
No, herbicides can be part of a safe and effective plan by which property owners can eliminate undesirable invasive species on their land, to the benefit of the environment.
So, point out the hazardous invasive species in that ad.
Note that your cites suggested * Shovel
Handsaw
Hand pruners
Loppers * Gloves
before resorting to chemicals.
Let us not get into how wonderfully caring the average American lawn owner is. He will spray indiscriminately to keep his stupid mononculture lawn (of non-native grass species, of course) like he wants it.
Go grind your axe somewhere else. Like it or not, people love their lawns. And few of them are motivated enough to go hand weed them or their driveways. So there’s a market for home herbicides.
Beyond that, like with nearly every environmental issue, the large scale commercial use of herbicides absolutely dwarfs homeowners and their piddling use of herbicides. Something like 10x the amount is used agriculturally than is used in non-agricultural uses. And I’d be willing to bet that the lion’s share of that non-agricultural use is still probably commercial landscaping stuff like golf courses, etc… not homeowners spraying weeds in the cracks of their sidewalks a teaspoon or two at a time.
Granted, I’m not a huge fan of indiscriminate “weed and feed” application every spring- most yards don’t even need it if they’re managed right. But most people don’t actually do any research- for example if you’ve got St. Augustine grass, cutting it at about 3" will allow it to choke out nearly all weeds. And if you water it infrequently but deeply, you can have it grow deep enough roots to only need watering once a week in the hottest, driest part of a Texas summer. But again, most people don’t know that and water their yard for like 30 minutes every day.
It’s not the monoculture, herbicides or fertilizers that are the problem, it’s ignorance.
Assuming you’re serious, it’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time- the combination of ignorance and a certain lack of personal responsibility (lack of research, lack of concern, lack of sheer responsibility) are absolutely infuriating and the cause of a lot of our problems. People don’t know how things work, aren’t willing to learn, and aren’t willing to take responsibility.
I sort of doubt any of us are wholly innocent either. It’s far too easy to get your prejudices entrenched, and not actually be willing to learn/change, because we all know WE are right.
And… few of these things would be issues if everyone was informed and responsible.
It just doesn’t sit well with me when the response to ignorant/irresponsible/crazy people behaving badly is to remove the right/ability of everyone else to do something that they’ve been doing just fine with all along. It’s like in elementary school when one kid screwed around, and then the whole class lost privileges. It sucked, and if you weren’t the problem child, it seemed absolutely unfair.
But that seems to be a common refrain on plenty of issues these days- if a small group can’t handle something, then nobody gets that privilege. I mean, why should I lose my ability to herbicide my yard, just because some other jerkwad poured his excess herbicide into the storm drain or uses too much? Or why shouldn’t I be allowed to gamble, just because some other guy has an addiction to it? Or use alcohol in some areas? Some of these things are long-standing bans I know, but they seem no less coercive to me.
Meh, you could say that about literally almost any regulation, though?
Why should I have to cross at the light, just because other people can’t manage to avoid oncoming cars? Why should I have to be restricted by a speed limit just because some other dorks can’t handle high-speed driving? Why should I have to leash my dog just because some dogs are badly behaved?
If the “small group” that “can’t handle something” is big enough and/or does enough damage, then we as a society stop trusting people in general with the ability to handle that something. Too bad, but maybe we should be more proactive in encouraging proper handling behavior before Nanny State gets tired of putting up with that shit and shuts it all down for everybody.
On the subject of bans in general and Roundup in particular, I generally tend to favour regulation over outright bans, except in situations – and there are many – where the hazards and danger to innocents greatly outweighs the benefits.
Roundup is in the category of “should be regulated” but not banned. I don’t support the EU’s total ban on it. Here in Ontario it’s not banned, but is required to be kept behind lock and key where purchases can be vetted and purchasers given a pamphlet on its appropriate use. I have a small spray bottle that I’ve used only once but will use again this spring on the next calm day, but it’s a very important use.
About five years ago I paid a guy with a pickup and a chainsaw about $300 to cut down and haul away a huge mutant bush that was growing so dramatically fast that I swear it must be an invasive species. At the time it was cut down, it was about as high as my two-storey house. Unbelievably, this mutant thing started growing again out of the stump. I tried pouring various eco-friendly herbicides on it but nothing could kill it. Last summer it was about fifteen feet high again.
I called the guy a second time, and he cut it down again. And of course it immediately started growing out of the stump again. This time I got Roundup and doused the stump. That killed it, at last, at least for that season. This spring most of the stump remains dead but there are little sprouts coming out the side. So another very localized spraying of Roundup will happen around the sides of the stump. That stuff is amazing, but it can be easily misused.
At some point I’m going to have get that stump ground down but meanwhile Roundup is keeping this plague under control – one spraying lasted a season, and the second spraying may kill it off entirely.
Why shouldn’t my kids have the right to check out books with “controversial” themes from the school or public library, just because some parents think those books’ naughty words or dangerous ideas will pollute children’s vulnerable psyches?
Nanny State sometimes has right-wing overtones.
There should be an obligation to verify overheated claims about any issue before blanket bans ensue. Roundup (glyphosate) has figured in a lot of bogus claims, some in this thread. No, it has not been proven to cause cancer, it’s highly doubtful that it harms bees or does the other terrible things its opponents claim. Compared to alternatives like the herbicides used before it, it’s relatively benign. I’m a lot more comfortable with homeowners using it than pouring gasoline or salt on weeds.
Maybe advocates of bans, in addition to getting their facts straight, should give education more of a chance.
*disclaimer: once again, I rarely have used herbicides, don’t treat weeds in lawns and discourage gardeners from using pre-emergent herbicides like Preen in their flower and shrub beds. Pick up a hoe instead, or garden in pots.
Preach it! That’s what I’m saying; there are precious few things that are really improved by banning them. Most can be solved through a combination of increased regulation and more vigorous enforcement. Now if they’re resistant to regulation, that’s a different problem…
Definitely, but that wasn’t bump’s objection. His complaint was about the “whole class lost privileges because one kid screwed around” aspect. He wasn’t arguing that the particular thing that kid did wasn’t inherently harmful so it shouldn’t have been forbidden in the first place.
As I said way back in post #2, I have nothing against (responsible) use of glyphosate in general either. But I don’t buy broad-brush complaints along the lines of waaah-it’s-unfair-to-make-rules-for-me-based-on-what-other-people-do. Like I said, you could apply that complaint to pretty much any regulated behavior that you personally haven’t screwed up (yet).
Less relevant example, because here again, the point of contention is whether these claims are overheated and unrealistic and thus intrinsically don’t justify banning in the first place, as in the glyphosate controversy.
The point in bump’s and my previous examples, on the other hand, was whether something that objectively is potentially dangerous should be officially banned just because a certain subset of people aren’t handling the danger responsibly.
