Using Roundup to Kill Invasives

Nature Talk
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Do you mean the poison? I think that might be worse than the invasives.

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i do mean glyphosate, yeah. you cannot kill invasive trees like black locust, tree of heaven or box elder without it. like you literally cannot.

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Since when is boxelder invasive?

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since i live in europe? hmm?

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I see.

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and without killing invasive plants by any means necessary you would have beautiful and poisonfree non native thickets everywhere. this boxelder thicket near my home is way beyond the attention of anybody, but conservation areas managements, in places with protected riparian vegetation do kill them and even set up a perimeter, where no box elder is permitted to grow, even discouraging people there from growing it as ornamental plant.

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We use poison on the stumps of invasive alien trees to prevent them sprouting again. Had to do that when we moved to this garden, and the Australian brush cherry still took years to finally stop sending up sprouts! We see blue painted stumps when we hike - deliberately cleared alien invasives.

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Yeah, but still, Roundup especially is harmful. Did you hear they fired the scientists that said it causes cancer and just kept selling?

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This is used in carefully targeted doses - not sprayed across fields. Not ideal - but the invasive plants are a HUGE issue. Fire hazard, water hogs, and destroying habitat or out-competing our locally indigenous. (I pulled 3 seedlings by hand on our mountain hike today)

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Not that I don’t believe you, but do you have a source?

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I can’t remember it.

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Some references on this site
https://www.iarc.who.int/iarc-monograph-on-glyphosate-other-related-information/

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Here, I found something in Wikipedia:

Nothing about the firing of those pesky health inspectors, though.

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I know the claims that the California laws are based on are widely disputed (though i can’t cite that either). I will tell you i have seen absurd things like firewood and sand with that ‘state of california cancer’ label on it too so make of that what you will.

I think roundup definitely has it’s downsides, it’s certainly poisonous to plants and probably mychorizae as well. So it needs to not be used when it isn’t essential. But the thing is at least in the US it’s dumped by the gallons on every ‘round up ready’ crop field so the use for invasive plants isn’t even the tiniest fraction of that, so when done judiciously i don’t have a problem with it. Unfortunately there’s a whole lot of questionable science on both the pro- and anti- side of the round-up debate

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I have a pair of plastic sunglasses which “may cause cancer in the state of California”.

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a lot of things is in the list of probable human carcinogen, you would be surprised at many of them.

roudup used to kill invasive trees is not a problem, unless the people doing the drilling and pouring pour some on themselves at daily basis. i do disagree with using it to “dessicate” eg kill crops before harvest, that feels like killing a pig by thiopental instead of stun and bleed and i think it is outrageous there is no withdrawal period here.

hovewer, as far as harmful substances are involved i am more worried about the credit card worth of plastic we each eat every week.

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:point_up_2: lol but fr tho

All this goes to show that we can’t just remove every nonnative species indiscriminately, because potentially (especially when you’re putting poison into the environment) the consequences outweigh the benefits. In this instance, poisoning destructive invasive is really the only option imo, the melaleuca tree for example has drastically altered much of south Florida from flooded grassland to relatively dry woodland (where typically melaleuca is the only plant), and fire management doesn’t work to eradicate them, leaving poison as the only current option.

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At least Roundup breaks down. I’m much more worried about the “forever chemicals” that permeate our world. They, along with radioactive waste, will still be causing harm long after industrial civilization has collapsed and we aren’t here to manage them anymore.

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Roundup breaks down?

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Yes, although the half-life varies. Soil type, level of microbial activity, and UV radiation all influence how long it takes.

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