Superweeds!

[thewayne]

In the I Told You So department, remember Monsanto and genetically-modified seeds? The way it works is the seeds are resistant to Roundup, Monsanto's weed-killer. Well, guess what? Just like we now have bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, we now have weeds that are resistant to Roundup.

One such weed can grow 3" a day, reach 7' tall, and can damage harvesting equipment.

So now farmers are having to till their ground with herbicides and use more herbicides to kill the weeds. And Monsanto is subsidizing the use of such herbicides rather than lose the sales of their modified seeds.

Who woulda thunk that plants cross-pollinate?!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/05/08/1336226/First-Superbugs-Now-Superweeds?art_pos=3

Comments

[silveradept]

Who would have thought that survival mechanisms would have kicked in, selecting for genes that are resistant to certain weed-killers, and look, a whole horde of crops that are resistant to weed killer? I wonder what they'll do...

...Monsato will eventually just develop a different chemical-resistant seed and force everyone to buy that, instead. Then we get MDRweeds.