Roundup travel guide

Roundup is the brand name of a systemic, broad-spectrum herbicide produced by the U.S. company Monsanto and contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Glyphosate is the most used herbicide in the USA and is the most-sold agrichemical of all time. In the US 5-8 million pounds are used every year on lawns and yards and 85-90 million pounds are used annually in US agriculture.
Monsanto developed and patented the glyphosate molecule in the 1970s, and marketed Roundup from 1973. It retained exclusive rights in the US until its US patent expired in September, 2000, and maintained a predominant marketshare in countries where the patent expired earlier.
The active ingredient of Roundup is the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Glyphosate's mode of action is to inhibit an enzyme involved in the synthesis of the amino acids tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. It is absorbed through foliage and translocated to growing points. Weeds and grass will generally re-emerge within one to two months after usage. Because of this mode of action, it is only effective on actively growing plants; it is not effective as a pre-emergence herbicide. Monsanto also produces seeds which grow into plants genetically engineered to be tolerant to glyphosate which are known as Roundup Ready crops. The genes contained in these seeds are patented. Such crops allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence pesticide against both broadleaf and cereal weeds. Soy was the first Roundup Ready crop and was produced at Monsanto's Agracetus Campus located in Middleton, Wisconsin. In May 2007, a federal court decision barred new plantings of Roundup Ready alfalfa and the resale of seeds, due to the failure of regulators to complete an environmental impact statement examining the potential that genetically-modified alfalfa would contaminate non-GM alfalfa crops, encourage new weeds tolerant to herbicides and limit export markets. (...) more....

travel guide by edit this text

Latest Reviews for Roundup

Have you been here? Write a quick review:

 You are currently not logged in. Login or register to write a review.