Is Roundup Safe? Are Organic Alternatives Realistic?

Are herbicides safe?

The more I take this horticultural gig seriously, the more I encounter questions like this. While it’s all fun and games to play organic farmer at home, large scale growing often requires large scale solutions. As a production gets larger, sprays and pesticides make more sense. Staff is unmotivated and expensive to get the job done, a spray can often do a better job, in the fraction of the time and cost. Businesses often look at the bottom line, and getting the job done eco-friendly isn’t always in the budget. All money aside, your average staff is pretty unwilling (and unmotivated) to get on their hands and knees to pull weeds all day. What’s a large scale grower to do.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time now as Roundup is occasionally sprayed at work to control the aggressive weeds on the property. With over 20 greenhouses of pathways and outdoor beds, a small patch of weeds can grow to seed rather quickly. If they aren’t dealt with in time, they seed, and there goes your crop. It’s a nightmare. I have no doubt pulled out over 100,000 weeds in my 4 years at the greenhouses, and I don’t see that number slowing down any time soon.

After all it’s essential to have a clean site in a business like this, weeds pose a huge threat to the health of the plants, and in turn the profitability of the business. One guy spraying herbicide can kill weeds to the root in one or two days, a whole staff of minions could do it in a week, only for the nearby unseen seedlings to take their place.

I’ve done a lot of research over the past little while and I can’t come up with a clear solution. Nothing works as good as Roundup. The alternatives are provocative but unrealistic. Vinegar solutions, flamethrowers and boiling water aren’t realistic for a large property.

Roundup has been linked with birth defect, cancer and irregular hormone levels. It kills many beneficial insects and damages local frog populations (Even lady bugs, GASP!). It’s supposed to be inert when it touches soil, but apparently hangs around a lot longer then you’d expect.  Trace elements of Roundup are moving through the food chain, and your tomato might contain deadly glyphosates on a minute level. The world is coming to an end!

In an age of Iphones and hybrid vehicles why is there only one working (POISONOUS) solution to this problem. Where are our scientists on this one, this stuff is being sprayed by our food because there isn’t any other practical solution. Weeds and crops don’t mix, the weeds gotta go. We can’t black cloth our entire property. Concrete is too expensive, and fences don’t sift out weed seeds. I was thinking of getting a goat, but he’d probably enjoy marigolds too.

Thoughts,  opinions and solutions. How does one organically or even a less toxically rid a 6 acre property of weeds.

Now for a nice photo of the foxgloves in bloom to calm us down from that scary conversation. Ah, Yes, no roundup here…  No weeds either!

I’ve almost forgotten and then I close my eyes.  I’m still haunted by wild visions , blind  deformed children and dead lady bugs. Are we next, I don’t want to die…  Pericallis, pericallis, pericallis.

And I’m done, for now.. What a nice clematis flower, ‘The President’ was the right choice.

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