With all the moisture this year plants tillered several times. Now there is dead ripe mature grain and several phases of younger green heads. Farmers years ago, swathed the grain leaving it to dry in the windrow.
Swathing is an extra pass over the fields and slower than straight cutting. Farmers are supposed to wait ten days after spraying before harvest. It is claimed by day ten glyphosate completely breaks down. I am not convinced.
When the patent rights on Roundup expired, glyphosate prices became cheap. China makes the bulk of glyphosate now.
Bayer May Stop Producing Glyphosate
Bayer says it may stop producing glyphosate, the world’s most popular weedkiller unless it can get court protection against lawsuits blaming the herbicide for causing cancer.
The Wall Street Journal says Bayer currently produces about 40 percent of the world’s glyphosate needs, which farmers use to kill weeds that threaten their crops.
Over the last ten years, the herbicide has also caught Bayer up in a number of lawsuits. In early March, Bayer told farmers, suppliers, and retailers that it may have to stop selling Roundup, which would force U.S. farmers to
rely on imported glyphosate from China. “We’re pretty much reaching the end of our road,” Bayer Chief Executive Bill Anderson told the Journal. “We’re not talking years but months instead.”
The USDA points out that more than 90 percent of soybeans, corn, and cotton crops planted in the U.S. are genetically modified to withstand the glyphosate-based weedkiller.