herbicide resistance – A Plant Out of Place

New study confirms herbicide use changed after adoption of GMO corn and soybean

August 31, 2016February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

But, once again, we are left to wonder whether that’s good or bad. A new paper was just published in the journal Science Advances that analyzes pesticide use data for farmers in the U.S. between 1998 and 2011. The authors (Edward Perry et al.) are currently agricultural economists at four different universities (Kansas State, Virginia, Michigan State, and Iowa State). Their goal was to determine if pesticide use differed between farmers using GMO varieties and farmers who did not use GMO varieties. Overall, …

Managing herbicide-resistant weeds

November 10, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

I made this word cloud in preparation for the class I’m teaching tomorrow. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I decided to post it here and share. In class, we’re going to discuss the effectiveness of various practices to manage herbicide resistant weeds. In preparation for tomorrow’s discussion, I asked my students to review 5 different herbicide industry websites to see what they were recommending to manage herbicide resistant weeds. This word cloud was created by taking recommendations from …

Where are the super weeds?

May 1, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

In a recent issue of Nature, Natasha Gilbert took “A hard look at GM crops.” Ms. Gilbert states: “it can be hard to see where scientific evidence ends and dogma and speculation begin.” “Researchers, farmers, activists and GM seed companies all stridently promote their views, but the scientific data are often inconclusive or contradictory. Complicated truths have long been obscured by the fierce rhetoric.” I agree wholeheartedly. Especially when browsing the internet, there is a lot of misinformation, half-truths, and …