Roundup... can it be used safely? Alternatives?

[Muse]

Flamethrowers are much more environment friendly.

Agent Orange?

 

[Muse]

Dawn has some bizarre cult following that imbues it with magical properties. It's detergent. Same as any other detergent. There's no need to specify it by name. "Liquid detergent" is sufficient.

I have bought Dawn one time in my life. "Ultra concentrated Dawn Complete," 2.81 quart container, probably from Costco, maybe a dozen years ago. I still have about 1/2 of that, have poured some off into a small dispenser.

That stuff is so concentrated it isn't funny. Maybe once every two weeks I'll use maybe 1/2 a teaspoon, and it's usually more than needed to clean whatever and have suds left over for most anything else. I saw a recommendation to use a few drops of it as a pre-treat for stains on clothes and I have done that numerous times. I've tried Goop for that too and my impression is the Dawn may be more effective. Goop markets itself as a clothes stain remover even more than a hands cleaner, is my impression. I don't use detergent in general, not to clean my dishes (and I don't have a dish washer). I clean my dishes in my sink using a dab of a bar of Ivory soap, "99 and 44/100's % pure." My mom always used that stuff at the sink. I use it in the shower too. I hate scented bath soaps.

When I need a surfactant I don't use Dawn anymore. I bought a quart of Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds Biodegradable Cleaner, which I saw recommended as a surfactant. I use it in my sprays for my edible vegetation in the yard, e.g. neem oil.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Isn't roundup the product where the CEO or someone was on the stand for that lawsuit saying 'it's so safe you can drink it', and they asked him to drink it and he wouldn't?

Yeah that was pretty funny. Not on the stand but this is one video I remember:

 

[Brainonska511]

Isn't roundup the product where the CEO or someone was on the stand for that lawsuit saying 'it's so safe you can drink it', and they asked him to drink it and he wouldn't?

It may not cause harm if you drink it, but it may still be unpleasant. I worked with nonpathogenic ecoli in grad school. I wouldn't drink a liter of it to prove some stupid line of questioning of proving it is safe. There is plenty of preclinical data to support Roundups nontoxicity to humans.

 

[snoopy7548]

Once your new lawn is established, you don't need any of these fancy chemicals. I use Milorganite and I have the best lawn on the block; I have to occasionally pick a few weeds here and there, but if your lawn is healthy and cut right, the grass will choke out weeds and prevent them from growing.

This year I put down Lesco Crabgrass Pre-Emergent just so I won't have to deal with the rare crabgrass that pops up, but other than that it's just Milorganite every few months.

 

[JeepinEd]

For killing weeds in barren areas, my go-to solution is boiling water. Just pour some on the weed and it's dead by morning. It may not be very convenient for a large area, though.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've done boiling water too. I do it for the crevices in the driveway. I'll have 4 pots going at once on the stove and just keep going out to pour it on.

 

[dainthomas]

Couple years ago I went out to my buddies families lake out in the country, were swimming around in it with his kids and our dogs and I kept smelling a strong distinct smell. Finally I'm like oh yeah you dummy this lakes filled with all the crop run off, thats round up your smelling.

Nope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate

The half-life of glyphosate in soil ranges between 2 and 197 days; a typical field half-life of 47 days has been suggested. Soil and climate conditions affect glyphosate's persistence in soil. The median half-life of glyphosate in water varies from a few to 91 days.[39] At a site in Texas, half-life was as little as three days. A site in Iowa had a half-life of 141.9 days.[78] The glyphosate metabolite AMPA has been found in Swedish forest soils up to two years after a glyphosate application. In this case, the persistence of AMPA was attributed to the soil being frozen for most of the year.[79] Glyphosate adsorption to soil, and later release from soil, varies depending on the kind of soil.[80][81] Glyphosate is generally less persistent in water than in soil, with 12- to 60-day persistence observed in Canadian ponds, although persistence of over a year has been recorded in the sediments of American ponds.[77] The half-life of glyphosate in water is between 12 days and 10 weeks.[82]

 

[Muse]

Once your new lawn is established, you don't need any of these fancy chemicals. I use Milorganite and I have the best lawn on the block; I have to occasionally pick a few weeds here and there, but if your lawn is healthy and cut right, the grass will choke out weeds and prevent them from growing.

This year I put down Lesco Crabgrass Pre-Emergent just so I won't have to deal with the rare crabgrass that pops up, but other than that it's just Milorganite every few months.

My front lawn is really small, about 8 feet x 20 feet, with a few small patches separated from it by concrete. The main patch was super healthy for over 30 years, but the last few it's started losing its grip. One corner kind of died in places starting about a year ago, it's mysterious. That's coming back some, but not really OK. I've seen a few weeds here and there. I'm sure if I looked today, I could find 1/2 dozen weeds of some sort. It used to choke out everything else. The other smaller patches of grass are looking pretty ratty for the most part. I've been thinking I should do something, but don't have experience with lawns beyond mowing them (I have a push mower), edging, watering and throwing on some dry fertilizer (which I've done a few times).

 

[quikah]

My front lawn is really small, about 8 feet x 20 feet, with a few small patches separated from it by concrete. The main patch was super healthy for over 30 years, but the last few it's started losing its grip. One corner kind of died in places starting about a year ago, it's mysterious. That's coming back some, but not really OK. I've seen a few weeds here and there. I'm sure if I looked today, I could find 1/2 dozen weeds of some sort. It used to choke out everything else. The other smaller patches of grass are looking pretty ratty for the most part. I've been thinking I should do something, but don't have experience with lawns beyond mowing them (I have a push mower), edging, watering and throwing on some dry fertilizer (which I've done a few times).

I would look into tearing it all out and replacing with native plants. There are an increasing number where I live in palo alto, they look excellent, granted it might be $$. Talk to a local nursery for ideas.

 

[bononos]

Isn't roundup the product where the CEO or someone was on the stand for that lawsuit saying 'it's so safe you can drink it', and they asked him to drink it and he wouldn't?

Yep, it was a lobbyist.

 

[Muse]

I would look into tearing it all out and replacing with native plants. There are an increasing number where I live in palo alto, they look excellent, granted it might be $$. Talk to a local nursery for ideas.

I've seen some gorgeous gardens around here. Not so much in my neighborhood, though. My sister lives in the Rockridge (N. Oakland) and I was walking on her street toward the BART station and one after another of the front yards was breathtakingly beautiful. I'm pretty sure those yards were cared for by professionals.

I could do something like that with my yard, but I've never done anything like it. Since living here (which was even before buying the house), my strategy in keeping up the yard has been to maintain what's there, weed, mow the lawn, etc. I know I should do more. I have contemplated that I should educate myself. Yes, I could talk to nurseries. I could also maybe take some classes! Maybe join some kind of group.

 

[uclaLabrat]

It may not cause harm if you drink it, but it may still be unpleasant. I worked with nonpathogenic ecoli in grad school. I wouldn't drink a liter of it to prove some stupid line of questioning of proving it is safe. There is plenty of preclinical data to support Roundups nontoxicity to humans.

Also, it's less toxic than table salt, by about half. If someone asked you to eat half a cup of table salt, you'd still have a bad time. Nothing stopping you from covering your fries with it.

It's amazing how people dont understand basic concepts like the dose makes the poison.

 

[Muse]

I was at Costco yesterday and noticed customer with a big pack containing a blue tarp in her basket, asked her where she got it? I found them and bought one. Contains two 12' x 16' tarps, a $20 + tax item. Hopefully they are sufficiently impermeable to light to put down grasses and weeds. Mostly, it's grasses. Unfortunately, they've gone to seed and those seeds will likely persist regardless. However, I figure even if I'd eliminated the grasses before they went to seed there are so many seeds around and in the soil already, there's no stopping them from coming back full force anyway. Still, it would obviously be a lot better to get them before they go to seed. Still might use some Roundup. It's difficult to tarp it all given the geometries and objects in the yard.

 

[BoomerD]

Roundup won't do anything to stop the seeds from germinating and growing. It works by interfering with the plant's ability to photosynthesize. A good pre-emergent...like Preen will help with that.

 

[Brainonska511]

Roundup won't do anything to stop the seeds from germinating and growing. It works by interfering with the plant's ability to photosynthesize. A good pre-emergent...like Preen will help with that.

Roundup doesn't do that. It stops plants with an amino acid synthesis pathway called the shikimate pathway from making aromatic amino acids. It's a big reason it is so nontoxic to people (we don't have that pathway).

 

[BoomerD]

Well...OK then...

 

[Muse]

Roundup won't do anything to stop the seeds from germinating and growing. It works by interfering with the plant's ability to photosynthesize. A good pre-emergent...like Preen will help with that.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for confirming that.

Never heard of Preen before, I'll look into that.

 

[Jeeebus]

Once your new lawn is established, you don't need any of these fancy chemicals. I use Milorganite and I have the best lawn on the block; I have to occasionally pick a few weeds here and there, but if your lawn is healthy and cut right, the grass will choke out weeds and prevent them from growing.

This year I put down Lesco Crabgrass Pre-Emergent just so I won't have to deal with the rare crabgrass that pops up, but other than that it's just Milorganite every few months.

General consensus is that Milorganite is ok, but people should know it's treated sewage sludge with a somewhat elevated presence of nasty stuff. I haven't really used any lawn fertilizer or weed control for several years, but my yard is somewhat unique in that I've got somewhere around 60 - 75 fruit trees and try to control what's going down in the yard around them.

 

[destrekor]

Dawn has some bizarre cult following that imbues it with magical properties. It's detergent. Same as any other detergent. There's no need to specify it by name. "Liquid detergent" is sufficient.

"wetting agent"

it is legit, though. I think what differentiates Dawn is that they have a higher, maybe just slightly, % of SDS in their recipe--or that they use SDS over other types of ionic detergents--compared to other brands. In the molecular lab, it's the preferred substitute for the pure detergents in a pinch, when you want to kill some nasty nucleases or stray nucelotides, or maybe even attempt (but still fail) to kill some prions.

I do believe that the mass cult following was largely influenced by Dawn's use to clean up the Exxon spill in Alaska. But of course that was the choice in general, I think, because a lot of those chemists already knew that Dawn really is kind of magic.

Granted, for everyday kitchen use, it may not make much of a difference. But Dawn has no general use brand substitute in the lab!

I think in this case though, when used to kill plants, it's generally sufficient to use the cheapest dish soap/detergent you can find. As LTC8K6 mentioned, in this type of use case it's simply a straight up wetting agent, don't really need anything special just something to help break surface tension and help maximize contact surface of the primary ingredients.

If you want any microbial or cleaning action when spreading onto plants and soil, I think that would call for Dawn to maximize effectiveness compared to generic soaps/detergents.

 

[destrekor]

General consensus is that Milorganite is ok, but people should know it's treated sewage sludge with a somewhat elevated presence of nasty stuff.

Interesting - what nasty stuff makes it through their process and quality testing? Yes obviously waste water/sewage sludge is not pretty stuff, but I've got to imagine there are stringent controls in place.
Granted, I just learned about Milorganite today and read up on them. Apparently it's a product by a government-run waste treatment facility for the Milwaukee region.

I haven't really used any lawn fertilizer or weed control for several years, but my yard is somewhat unique in that I've got somewhere around 60 - 75 fruit trees and try to control what's going down in the yard around them.

I don't think that qualifies as a yard anymore. Sounds like a small-scale orchard to me

 

[tchrngymshorts67]

I've personally moved away fro using RoundUp given all the concerns and bad press as of late... I have focused on pulling weeds and using vinegar for tough to treat spots (sidewalk cracks, for example) to alter the soil pH and hopefully prohibit further weed growth...

 

[Muse]

Dawn has some bizarre cult following that imbues it with magical properties. It's detergent. Same as any other detergent. There's no need to specify it by name. "Liquid detergent" is sufficient.

Is this true? I have bought Dawn one time only, around a dozen years ago, a "large" container, maybe 1/2 gallon? It's still part full. I pour off into smaller container and use SPARINGLY. One drop of the darn stuff is super intense, GOES A LONG WAY! I don't use it often. Can't remember buying any other liquid detergent in my life, TBH. Are others really the same? I guess I got it in the first place because I saw it touted for removing stains from clothing: put a drop on a stain before putting in your laundry, maybe let it set there a day or two before the wash. I use it VERY VERY SPARINGLY when I wash my eye glasses. Once in a while I use a drop for cleaning an especially greasy whatever in the kitchen sink. Other than that, I don't use it when washing dishes. I have no dishwasher, I do all my dishes in a double kitchen sink by hand. The soap I use there 98% of the time is a bar of Ivory, a dab or two.

I am revisiting this thread because I once again have a serious weed problem leading into planting time for my backyard vegetables.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If you live remotely close to Ohio just wait until the vinyl chloride fallout from the train explosion hits your area, and weeds will be the least of your concerns. But they'll also die so you'll be all good.

 

[NuclearNed]

I still use Roundup, but in special cases I'll use bleach - usually straight up with no dilution. It will kill most plants, and my understanding is that after a little while in the sun, bleach breaks down into various salts which are (mostly?) safe.

The best strategy is to hit weeds before they even sprout. Preen the heck out of your flower & mulch beds. Preen is simply wonderful, in my opinion.