The best part about summer picnics is meeting new scholars and hearing stories of Nuffield travels, even if they were 20 to 30 years ago or more! Fellow 2013 Canadian Scholar Blake Vince (@BlakeVince) has had a very busy year again and Jack shared his adventures of having everything stolen on his travels in 1995!
It is also great to visit other parts of Ontario. I forget how diverse we are just within one province, let alone globally! Less than 2 hours south of Midwestern Ontario, soy beans are already a golden yellow. Ours are not even thinking about it!
This beautiful crop is almost waist deep! Looking at this crop, along the road where I live, makes me realize how I have come to expect clean, clear monocrops, but like most fields of soybeans around here, fleabane has grown taller than the crop has. So I started asking some questions. What’s going on?
According to the Ontario Grain Farmers, there are “12 counties in Ontario that have glyphosate resistant Canada fleabane with six having populations that are also resistant to “group 2 herbicides.” Huron County is one of them. Having these weeds causes yield loss. What to do?
More herbicides are needed, they say. Monsanto already has some “effective solutions available to farmers”; products that can be used for pre-planting/pre-emerging as well as for in-crop control. Do we keep doing this, herbicide upon herbicide? Where are we headed with this strategy?
