Glysophate, Roundup as Chelator harming soil and plants

Date:   12/19/2011 3:56:17 PM ( 13 y ago)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds-of-destruction--It-by-j-dial-111211-50...



Okay, thus far the industry has not quite lived up to its promises. So what?

Don M. Huber is Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology at Purdue University. With a background on soil-borne disease, microbial ecology, and host-parasite associations, he warns that damage from genetically engineered crops is expanding beyond what anyone knew.

Agriculture is a system that comprises plants, soil, soil microorganisms, and pests and diseases that, in a well-functioning system, are held in check. The quality of food is greatly dependent on the quality of the soil that nourishes it. Micronutrients in the soil enable roots to absorb nutrients. In an interview with Joseph Mercola, MD, Dr. Huber reports that glyphosate is having a major effect on microbes in the soil.

Herbicides such as glyphosate are chelators. In chemistry, chelators are substances that bind with metals, preventing their interaction with surroundings; chelation is a way to remove heavy metals from the bloodstream. Herbicides and pesticides are specific chelators of copper, zinc, iron, and manganese, and some of these herbicides leach from GM plants back into the soil. These metals are essential micronutrients for plants (not to mention animals). Once chelated they are immobilized and no longer available -- to plants, to animals, to soil microbes. Even herbicide-resistant plants are affected--the inserted gene stunts the plant's ability to absorb nutrients. According to Dr. Huber, the nutritional efficiency of GM plants is "profoundly compromised". In GM plants, iron, manganese, and zinc can be depleted by as much as 90 percent. When glyphosate is applied externally, the effect is compounded.

Bacteria in the intestines of animals and man are quite sensitive to glyphosate. When the balance of the "intestinal milieu" is disturbed, unhealthy organisms normally held in check will blossom. Botulism in dairy cows was once rare but , now that beneficial gut organisms are no longer capable of holding Clostridium botulinum in check, is now becoming a common cause of death. Ecology and physiology function best in balance; when balance is disturbed there are consequences. In the 15 or so years since GM foods were introduced and the floodgates opened (already GM is 86 percent of corn, 93 percent of soy, canola, and cottonseed oil, and 95 percent of sugar beets), food allergies have risen substantially. Correlation may not be causation, but then again it could be and is being investigated.

Now an alarming new aspect of GM has emerged. An unknown and unclassified micro-fungal organism inhabits GE feed. The organism, which is not fungus, bacteria, mycoplasma, or virus, was first identified by veterinarians around 1998--two years after soybeans, one of the staple livestock feeds, were introduced as "Roundup ready". The veterinarians had been investigating in livestock a sudden high rate of infertility and spontaneous abortion and detected an organism similar in size to a small virus. The organism is also associated with a condition in soy called Sudden Death Syndrome. When cultured alone it does not survive well, but in combination with yeast, bacteria, or fungus it grows heartily. What this organism is and what it does still remain largely a mystery.

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