The Superweeds - the Mother of all Gardening Problems

Among gardeners who like to stay natural and environment friendly, and no-till policy is not uncommon. they realize that plowing into the soil loosening and breaking it up only helps with soil erosion, helping the rain and the wind blow off topsoil, and of course helping the rain drain off pesticides into the ground. But over the last couple of years, they havent been able to keep up their commitment. Theyve called in the tilling machines to rip up the soil, and to mix in herbicides. Theyve had enough of terribly stubborn weeds that seem tosuffocate every other garden plant around. They are the new scourge of the gardening enthusiast, the gardening problem to end all gardening problems they are the superweeds.

Its the same thing that has happened with people and bacteria. People have been recklessly popping pills for decades now and bacteria and other organisms have just become used to them; health documentaries on the Discovery Channel can't stop trumpeting how the future will just about be all about battling tenacious super germs that will just laugh at all standard drugs you could throw at them We will have to take to especially powerful drugs of the kind we usually use only for cancer chemotherapy. In the same way, gardeners across the country are beginning to battle gardening problems that come from super weeds - with the use of super toxic herbicides. When they can, theyll try to rip the weeds out by hand; but it just takes too much time and effort.

Farming and gardening in this country have turned full circle to a time when no one had any weapon against weeds and pests other than their own to low-tech hands. Using super powerful herbicides will only result in poisoned plants, lower yields, and health problems. It all started 10 years ago in a farm and Delaware that grew soybeans. It was just one kind of superweed back then, and it seemed like they would find a way around it. All of a sudden though, everyones reporting gardening problems of this kind of a dozen varieties that affect every kind of garden plant and every kind of farm crop. At a time when everyones so enthusiastic about genetically modified soybeans, cotton and corn, seeing what happens when a plant is genetically modified (by nature in reaction to unnatural problems) should lend us a bit of caution.

It all began when Monsanto came up with a super toxic herbicide called Roundup about 20 years ago. No ordinary plant could withstand that kind of poison, and so to help, they offered genetically modified seeds called Roundup-ready seeds. Theyve just about cornered the market with them; except that now, weeds have turned Roundup-ready themselves through evolution, and farmers have no choice but to go back to weeding by hand. And these new weeds, horseweed and ragweed, have spread from the large-scale farms to our backyards, to our gardens for supersize industrial scale gardening problems for all of us.

Our farms are already a real soup of petrochemical derived fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and whatnot. The company thats behind all of this, Monsanto feels that there is one great answer to all the gardening problems and farming problems we have in this country go extra super strong genetically modified. And of course you have to go to that company to buy those products all over again.