As a farmer who zero tills and has to rely on chemicals for weed control, I am very concerned about weeds that are becoming resistant to certain chemicals. On our farm we are very careful how we rotate crops so that we do not have to spray with the same chemical groups year after year. It is with a great deal of concern that I have been reading about genetically altered seeds that have a built in resistance to certain chemicals.
If, for example, we seed glyphosate resistant canola this year, we may get good weed control this year, but we have to remember that this crop is next year's (and subsequent year's) weed. If we can no longer get a burn down with Roundup in the following spring, what do we use? How about Rustler? Unfortunately that limits what we can seed because of what is in this chemical. We also have to remember that these seeds will be in the ground for a long time -- so we have now limited our crop and chemical rotations for years to come!
Another problem I can see with this particular scenario is how do we do fall desiccation if some of the weeds we are trying to burn down and kill happen to be late germinating resistant canola from previous years? If we do not realize that this is a specific type of canola in this field, we will have killed everything else but this, have gained nothing and spent a lot of money!
Other genetically altered seeds are resistant to only one particular broad leaf spray i.e. Pursuit Smart canola, a group 2 chemical. One of the questions I have is " If these seeds can mutate or cross pollinate with other weeds, will these "new" weeds be resistant to all group 2 chemicals?" If this was the case we would drastically cut our broad leaf spray options! The reason I am concerned about this is that we have seen that nature can do this itself without any help from us!
I have used these examples to highlight some of the problems that could arise. I'm not saying that genetically altered seeds are bad, but what I do hope will happen is that farmers will look long and hard at the seed choices they are making today because in years to come these choices could come back to haunt them with fields of weeds that cannot be controlled!
Fred Phillips farms with his brother at Yorkton. He is a former director of the SSCA.