A friend told me that Round-Up brand herbicide (Glycine Phosphate) is actually organic as any "organic" hebicide is. True?...or is it the old "ANY petroleum based product is technically organic" line of thought.

Jason

-- Jason (AJAMA5@netscape.net), September 28, 2001

Answers

NO !!!!!

-- (organicgrange@yahoo.com), September 28, 2001.

Look at it this way Jason, with this line of reasoning Agent Orange is totally organic also!!!

Organic basically means that the stuff occurs in Nature naturally, without human twiddling about.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), September 28, 2001.

Glyphosate products,like Round-up are considered moderately toxic compounds in EPA toxicity class 2.Labels for products containing these compounds must have the signal word WARNING. Glyphosate itself is an acid,but is used in salt form also,the most common isopropylamine salt.It may also be available in acidic or trimethylsulfonium salt forms.As for breakdown in soil and water,glyphosate has an estimated average half-life of 47 days.In pond water breakdown is from 12 days to 10 weeks

-- Steve in Ohio (stevenb@ohiohills.com), September 28, 2001.

Jason,

What your friend may have meant by organic is that it breaks down quickly in the ground to inert substances. It does not stay in the ground or groundwater because it breaks down immediately.

I have been told by farmers in my neighborhood that Roundup is the safest herbicide on the maket and it is broken down in three weeks or less by ground bacteria. It can even be planted on in three weeks and no harm will come to the crop.

Before all the environmentalists in the audience jump all over me for my comments I would like to say that for 25 years I have not put anything on my garden that was not natural. I believe this is the way to go if possible.

Talk to you later.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), September 28, 2001.

My reason for asking was to kill poison ivy. I am VERY allergic to the stuff and have one barn wall covered in it! It gives me shivers just to look at it. I have heard that goats will eat it, but none of our six have ever been able to climb vertical walls (though almost LOL!)

Anyone have another SURE killer...preferably organic in nature?

Thanks

-- Jason (AJAMA5@netscape.net), September 28, 2001.

I believe I saw a thread somewhere where someone had tried everything to kill poison ivy and nothing worked until they poured heavily salted water over the roots. That seemed to kill it and it never came back. Guess salt is organic, isn't it!? But it will kill most vegetation. Cheap, and worth a try???

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), September 28, 2001.

Brush B GOne works, very well. Not organic though. Far from it.

Roundup is not potent enough for PI in my experience.

The most effective way I've found to treat PI is to cut the vines off a few inches above the ground. Then paint the cut stumps using a foam brush and undiluted Brush B gone. Works like a charm.

But since you're highly allergic, this is probably not a good method for you. I get the rash but not too bad. And if I'm careful in cutting and painting, I can avoid exposure.

And always remember that even though the PI looks or is dead, it can still cause a reaction. The oil that causes the reaction can last for years on a dead plant, clothing, etc.

-- chris (frontiercc@yahoo.com), September 28, 2001.

Jason, go to your nearest feed store and purchase some feed grade salt in a 50 pound bag, should be around 5 dollars or so, and put a pound or more around each square foot of infested area, the salt will kill everything quickly and it will not return for a year or more. This is about as organic a method as can be obtained anywhere.

The others are right, the Roundup is not strong enough to kill ALL the poison ivy!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), September 28, 2001.

The 2,4-D in the brush killer should do it. Sometimes if the plant has been cut back or is just plain ornery like PI is there's not enough foliar surface area to get enough chemical absorbed to kill the root. The salt thing seems less "organic" to me because you'll be sterilizing your soil. The directed application of the herbicides (which are also salts) is aimed to just kill that particular plant, not everything and the potential for anything else for a year or years. On the other hand, there is a seed bank of PI in your soil that's just waiting for an opportunity to sprout up and grow, so maybe that's the best answer for a highly allergic person. Just seems drastic to me.

-- Susan (smtroxel@socket.net), September 28, 2001.

Smug grin! Can't speak about poison ivy - we don't have it - or poison oak, or any of those other nasties.

So ... anyone want to migrate to Australia - and play with the most of the most venomous creatures in the world?

About salt - it is about as non-organic as you can get. Artificial aniline dyes made from coal tar are organic, as are many pesticides made from petroleum. However, salt is NATURAL. We have this confusion of terms - organic dosn't necessarily mean good or even natural, non- organic doesn't necessarily mean unnatural or bad. Come to that, natural doesn't necessarily mean good either - witness poison ivy, or many Australian snakes. Even nitrates used as fertiliser are natural - in very small doses. Lightning creates them, then they get washed down to the soil in rain. Or they can form spontaneously from urea - that created a furore back in the late 1800's - organic chemisty was by definition the chemistry of compounds formed by living organisms, or of carbon compounds - then they found that ammonium nitrate could be persuaded to turn into urea, and vise versa; and they could make ammonium nitrate artifically, and it didn't contain carbon.

Anyway, the salt does sound like a good idea - sterilise the soil, kill any seeds that do germinate, give you a weed-free border around the wall. Find someone (maybe someone young and strong) who isn't very allergic to the poison ivy, hire them to apply the salt (possibly as a saturated solution), on the understanding that they also clean up the ivy - either when it's dead and dry, or right now - their choice. Insofar as you're getting towards winter, maybe you can wait until the leaves have fallen? At that stage, maybe someone not allergic could root out the whole things, then you could apply the salt early spring.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), September 28, 2001.

OK, I'm no fan of herbicides, natural or supernatural or whateve, but if you must get the evil PI out of the way then now is the time to do it. This time of the year the plant is transferering all of the energy it usually uses for new growth into the roots for the winter. In other words, if you're gonna round-up, don't cut the leaves, let them take the venomous poison into the roots for you. Also, do not be fooled by dormant PI. I know you probably know this since you are allergic but the only time my lovely wife has ever contracted poison ivy was when we moved to a new house in the winter and she pulled up PI by the roots thinking it was a benign plant...ZANGO...(gee honey, what do you think these bumps are?) poor gal.

good luck and keep the calamine handay...gilly

-- gilly (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), September 28, 2001.