Tuesday 19 February 2013

Herbicide Resistance Conference

Well we are into Day Three into the International Herbicide Resistance Conference being held here in Perth. It really is fantastic to have these professionals around the world gathering in Western Australia to talk about our increasing weed problems. It goes to show that WA really is one of the herbicide resistant champions of the world.

Day One, was a great start. John Harvey from GRDC welcomed the group to Australia, and introduced them to Agriculture in WA. Did you know there used to be 40,000 farmers in Australia, and now there is only 22,000. Weeds are costing farmers 2 billion dollars annually in grain growing areas, and the GRDC are spending 8.2 million annually on weed research.

Other herbicide company reps spoke, as well as researchers from around the world. A lot of the focus was on glyphosate resistance, evolving with glyphosate tolerant GM crops. It really is scary to look at the rapid evolution of glyph resistance in the US with the intense reliance on roundup ready GM crops. WE REALLY have to make sure we learn from the US experience, and make use these crops n a sustainable way, that will ensure we can use the importnant herbicide glyphosate in the future.
I also get very nervous as they talk of stacking genes for multiple herbicide resistant crops. THese tools are something that we will have to use VERY carefully. Good Stewardship is essential.
It was interesting to note that no overseas visitors are strong advocates for alternative non herbicide weed control. They all mention cultural methods for weed control, but the main focus is more herbicides and future herbicide or crops that will solve their problems. Australia in my opinion really is leading the pack in Integrated weed management.

An interesting thing I learnt was about the discovery of new herbicide mode of actions. Speakers kept making the point that no new herbicide modes of action have been discoverd since 1982. Then when I was talking to people in the breaks, they were saying that many new herbicide moa have been dicovered, but that they have not got through the development and regulatory processes so that they can get to market. So..... whats going on there,??? im not sure?
Another concern is companies are putting all there money into GM seed instead of herbicide research, as there is more money in seed.

It is very obvious that herbicide resitant weeds are a major problem for all farmers around the world.





 

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