96% of Bees Killed in Weedkiller Research......But Glyphosate May Not Be the Problem!

 

 

My husband hates weeds, especially ones in between cracks in the patio. As soon as they appear he can be found outside with his preferred weedkiller, Roundup in hand, spraying with abandonment, with no regard to the safety of himself or the environment. Even the lightest breeze will cause wind drift, decimating the edges of my flower beds

I banned him from using it, so he bought a mini flame thrower,
which was ok until he set alight a pile of rubbish waiting to be skipped, so I banned that too, his cries of “what’s so wrong with Roundup anyway?” and “so what can I bloody use?” were largely ignored because, in all honesty, I had no real practical answer. 

So, to steal a quote from Matt Damon in The Martian I decided that “I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this” to provide some answers. 

What is a Weedkiller?

Weedkillers, known as herbicides, kill plants and are used by errant husbands and gardeners to control weeds.  Councils use it to maintain public spaces although Green Party controlled councils, Brighton and Hove for example, have banned its use, much to the dismay of those that voted them in because now residents can no longer use the weed strewn pavements.  Farmers are the biggest user of herbicides and indeed it is considered “critical” to regenerative farmers according to our, now former, Environment Minister Therese Coffey.

How does it work?

Most herbicides are glyphosate based.  Created and patented by Monsanto in 1974 and branded as Roundup. Glyphosate is combined with additives called co-formulants, which enhance the performance of glyphosate. The ingredients of co-formulants are considered trade secrets so remain undisclosed, and as they are also considered inert, they are not subject to regulatory scrutiny either. 

Glyphosate works by stopping a plant enzyme working which destroys something called the shikimate pathway, and as this doesn’t exist in humans or animals it is considered safe by Government agencies.  Despite this, in the USA, over 100,000 plaintiffs have so far been awarded $10.9billion against Monsanto (now Bayer) as compensation for causing cancer.

 

The Science! 

There's a wealth of research available linking glyphosate and Roundup with harm to humans, animals and the environment, so I decided to focus my attention on bees, a particularly important pollinator responsible for at least 74% of vegetable production, because put simply, no bees mean limited food supply.

Conveniently, Lucas Battisti and his colleagues had done the job for me by pulling all the available research together in what is known in science speak as a “meta-analysis”. They found that when the herbicide touched the bee it activated self-cleaning which they ingested, this affected their gut microbiome, reduced their cognitive ability (many couldn’t remember where their hives were), and made them more susceptible to disease causing pathogens. The herbicide accumulated in their system causing death, and because they took this back into the hive and fed it to larvae, it ultimately caused the collapse of the colony. 

But then I came across another piece of research by Dr Straw at the University of Holloway London, which compared the effects of spraying bees with 3 types of Roundup and one other glyphosate-based herbicide called Weedol, owned by Scots Miracle-Gro Company. What they found was surprising. The herbicide with no glyphosate caused the highest mortality and Weedol only caused 6% mortality (just 2% higher than distilled water used as a control). 

This leads to the conclusion that it is the unregulated co-formulants and not the glyphosate that is the real villain here. 

And the Solution?

Admittedly this was a small study, it needs to be replicated on a larger scale and, if proved conclusive, then the law needs to change so that the ingredients of co-formulants are published and regulated. 

We could argue that we should all just abandon Roundup and use Weedol instead, but could the co-formulants in Weedol do other environmental damage? We just don’t know.
This could all prove rather moot.  Whilst the UK is not considering a glyphosate ban, several other countries have banned it or are considering banning it.

Even if we don’t see an outright ban, mother nature is making her presence felt with 225 weeds in 70 countries found to be resistant to glyphosate. In short, glyphosate no longer kills all weeds. 

So, it seems regardless of legislation, mother nature, or indeed whether we want to use it or not, we are going to need to change our relationship with glyphosate-based herbicides.   But how? What's the alternative? And that, my friends, is the subject of my next post! 

NB All unreferenced photos are by unknown authors and licensed under CC BY-NC