Will Roundup Face A Bleak Future Due To Resistant Weeds?

That's the scenario painted by Steve Powels, an Australian plant biologist, who spoke at the recent Pan-American Weed Resistance Conference in Miami.

“Glyphosate (active ingredient in Roundup) will be driven to redundancy in the cotton, corn and soybean belt,” said Powles in a report by Forest Laws in Delta Farm Press. “Outside of these areas of the U.S., then glyphosate should continue to be effective because it is not massively used.

“Within the cotton, corn and soybean belt the massive reliance on glyphosate means that it will be driven to redundancy because many of the big driver weeds such as Palmer pigweeds, waterhemp, ragweed and Johnsongrass will be resistant. There may be many weed species still controlled by glyphosate, but glyphosate will fail on the driver weeds and that means overall failure.”

Here's a link to the full report. It's worth reading.