Question on how to kill a tobacco plant

[norest]

Glyphosate is roundup you just have to be ok with getting in bed with Monsanto... I'd be cautious in be living their research

 

[chuditch]

Well it doesn't seem to upset the worms when the plant dies they seem to get straight to work burrowing through the decomposing plant material and it doesn't seem to worry the frogs hunting insects in the garden. Those two are normally the first to disappear if the environment is not well. I tend to use Glyphosate where needed at the rate needed where on the other hand I don't use any insecticides and find natural predators seem to do the trick. I think judicious use of chemicals with thought and reading of the fact sheets and looking at alternatives and go with what you feel comfortable with as long as it doesn't impact on your neighbours

 

[norest]

I hear ya. The scale is pretty small though. Only a controlled environment would let ya know if the insects were affected. Could start catching and branding the little buggers haha. But I only dislike the stuff because of the volume that it's used in. Down there it may not be so big but here its half the grain fields and every oilfield lease is doused in it. My dad's a trained herbicide applicator and he don't like it either. On the small scale it could be great. But it's parent company is banging the little guy from every direction.

 

[chuditch]

I get that norest. Its the volumes and the large scale spraying is a worry. A bit "agent orange" thoughts with it. Even though I am happy using it here on the farm and I think it is fine for the insects I have to admit I still suit up when I am going to spray it. And yes the big companies will tell us all sorts of lies to get their products used. I try for very natural things to spray here when I can. I use sulphur and copper on the vines to control various moulds and I don't spray the aphids on the grape vines. They turn up in great numbers then the next thing is a mass of lady bugs appear and devour them all. If I spray the aphids just once I will break that cycle and been told could take around seven or eight years of not spraying to get the lady bugs back in action and all those years the aphids will have a field day. But we got of topic

 

[chuditch]

Oh and branding the insects thought I would share with you.
I have bee hives as well and as a registered bee keeper you get a brand to put onto your hives.
A city person heard me talking about this and said to quote "do you have to brand all your bees?"
I said yes just encase they sting someone they know whos bee it was.
"Gosh that must be a huge job how do you do it"
So I went into detail about having this miniature laser branding set up you get the bees to walk through as they leave the hive.
Sad isn't it

 

[norest]

Haha! That is awesome some.people are so gullible! That makes total sense about the lady bugs. People should stop the ship bugs gotta eat too haha it sucks they wreck our produce but sooner or later we will be missing them. I wonder if pruning the roots would kill a plant it you were close enough to the main shoot. I just took the food away from my plants a week ago today and now the leaves are turning from the bottom up.

 

[Gibson's Farm]

Glyphosate.
It kills all the plants that you spray the foliage of and doesn't harm the soil and is non residual.
You can spay around plants if you are careful as in no breeze and careful where the spray is going.
I had a lot of weeds come up between all my tobacco plants and used it to weed between them with no detriment to the tobacco.
I use it in the vineyard in spring so the drip line along the vines is clear of growth and use it before replanting a paddock with pasture so have killed all the weeds.
It basicly excites the plant to death and you will find worms and other good things already at work on the root system within days of spraying.

Glysophate kills plants by disrupting the photosynthesis.

 

[leverhead]

...Sad isn't it

Actually it's pretty funny! It's the same kind of story that entertains kids, it doesn't say much for the general population.

 

[Gibson's Farm]

To your original post.

I would plow or disk the roots up.
I would then plant a cover crop. I would use cow peas, hairy vetch or some other nitrogen fixing legume. These crops will actually put nitrogen back into your soil. If you do not use a cover crop to break the cycle of constantly planting the same crop in the same location you will run into all kinds of problems like insects and disease. That goes for any crop not just tobacco.

Here are some good videos about cover crops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06N63U-RAl0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv0dULyYeX0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1_dTqIV3lA

 

[USHOG]

Great information Thank you all

 

[BigBonner]

I wonder about generic Glysophate being as bad as people claim . You can spray a grass tobacco field (No till ) with it in the fall and plant tobacco next spring and it does not hurt tobacco . Tobacco is the most sensitive to about any chemical . Any weed seeds that did not germinate before spraying , will sprout and grow normal .Glysophate is a contact spray . This is from articles about no till tobacco .
I don't use any weed killers on my tobacco
In the past there was a lot of bad chemicals paris green , bromo gas and others that I can not remember that have been banned from use .

 

[DonH]

Glyphosate may not harm tobacco plants but it's harmful as hell to humans.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/25/roundup-health-study-idUSL2N0DC22F20130425

Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study.


The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.


Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.


"Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says.


We "have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated," Seneff said.

 

[Birage]

Search you tube for Dr. Stephanie Seneff's seminars and you will learn a lot of what is wrong with GMO foods, that being the glyphosate. It disrupts the metabolism in our gut which eventually ruins our immune system and brain. Scary stuff! She shows pictures of animals that were fed glyphosate, they were loaded with tumors. In Europe, farmers noted that wild animals will not even forage in their fields of GMO foods.

 

[chillardbee]

I believe the commercial guys just plow and disk the fields after the crop is in wether just after harvest or before planting the following season. Those root balls are tough and you'll need a fairly good rotortiller to do the job, I know my pissy assed 2 amp won't. So I just go to the tried and true of muscle and back bone. I just loosen them up with a spade and then go back over it with a 4 pronged cultivator to pull them out. This actually goes very quick when one applies themselves and just get the job done.

 

[Boboro]

I have grow wary of Scientist an there studys. They are paid by ppl. to get the results they want. Gov. grants are the worst. As they make it clear about the results they want.

 

[Grumpa]

Search you tube for Dr. Stephanie Seneff's seminars and you will learn a lot of what is wrong with GMO foods, that being the glyphosate. It disrupts the metabolism in our gut which eventually ruins our immune system and brain. Scary stuff! She shows pictures of animals that were fed glyphosate, they were loaded with tumors. In Europe, farmers noted that wild animals will not even forage in their fields of GMO foods.

Bogus science as is the quote in DonH post above. Seneff is an electrical engineer and has little to no training in this field. Most of this paper was simply made up as no original research was done but simply a literature review of discredited papers. The study was published in a non-peer reviewed fringe journal. Junk science plain and simple.

Not it to say that glyphosate is ambrosia but this sort of crap does no good except for those that are conspiracy junkies. Do your own research and get both sides of an issue. Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

An interesting debunking article (and there are many more): http://www.examiner.com/article/bogus-paper-on-roundup-saturates-the-internet

Edit: glyphosate and GMO are two completely separate issues and cannot be tied together like that.

 

[Boboro]

Well there is the Round up ready gene.

 

[DonH]

I think glyphosate and GMOs are tied together because the Roundup Ready GMOS crops allow for heavier use of Glyphosate.

 

[DonH]

Maybe extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof but claiming that a herbicide is dangerous is not an extraordinary claim. Things that kill plants or insects are most likely damaging to humans. The question is at what level of exposure. And I don't trust any research funded by Monsanto, and most of it is. Call it a conspiracy theory if you want but the world is run by conspiracies. Companies like Monsanto are by nature conspiracies, they meet privately to further their interest. Should be nothing shocking about that but conspiracy theory has been given a bad connotation, kind of equated to being crazy.

 

[Gibson's Farm]

I think glyphosate and GMOs are tied together because the Roundup Ready GMOS crops allow for heavier use of Glyphosate.

******** I farm for a living and I raise Non-GMO crops. Glyphosate/Roundup is a non selective herbicide that inhibits photosynthesis in plants. Non selective mean that it will kill any plant that it touches. You can only use round up on plants that have a gene in them that allows them to be resistant to glyphosate. Key word is resistant not to be confused with immune. At a high enough dose glyphosate will kill any plant. The biggest problem with using round up ready crops is that with continues use the weeds in the fields will become resistant to round up naturally. Right now there is over 20 million acres of crop ground infested with round up resistant weeds.