Roundup, things you should know.

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Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round Up:

In tests by Monsanto Manufacturer of the herbicide Roundup, up to 140 days were required for half of the applied glyphosate to break down of disappear from agricultural soils. At harvest, residues of glyphosate were found in lettuce, carrots and barley planted one year after the glyphosate treatment

Glyphosate Can Drift Test conducted by the University of California found that glhphosate difted up to 400 meters during round applications, and 800meters during aerial applications.

Glyphosate is actutely toxic to humans Ingest three quarters of a cup can be lethal. Symptoms include eye and skin irritation, lung congestion and erosion of the intestinal tract. In California between 1984 and 1990, glyphosate was the third most frequently reporte dcause of illness related to agricultural pesticide use.

Glyphosate shows a wide specturm of chronic toxicity in laboratory tests. The National Toxicology Prgram found that chronic feeding of glyphosate caused alivary gland lesions, reduced sperm count and lenthened the estrous cycle. Other chronic effects found in laboratory tests included an increase in the frequency of lethal mutations in fruit flies; an increase in the frquency of pancreas and liver tumours in male rats along with an increae in the frequency of thyroid tumours in females and cataracts.

Roundup contains toxic trade secrete ingredients. These include plyethoxylate tallowamines, which can cause nausea and diarrhea and isopropylamine, which can cause chemical pneumonia, laryngitis , head and burns.

Roundup kills beneficial insects Test conducted by the Internation Organization for Biological Control show that Roundup causedmortality of live beneficial species when tested on predatory mites , lacewings, ladybugs and predatory beetles

Glyphosate is hazardous to earthworms. Tests using New Zealand most common earthworm show that glyphosate, in amounts as low as one 20th standard application rates, reduced the earthworms growth and slowed development.

Roundup inhibits Mychorrhizal Fungi Canadian studies have shown that as little as one part per million of Roundup can reduce the growth or colonization of mycorrhizal fungi

Glyphosate Reduces Nitrogen Fixation Nitroen fixing bacteria, shown to be impacted by glyphosate, include the species found on soybeans and several species of bacteriafound on clover. Amounts as small as two parts mper million had significant efftects. Effects were measured up to 120 days after treatment.

Round up can increase the spread or severity of plant diseases
Treatment with Roundup increased the severity of Rhizoctina root rot in barley, increased growth of take all fungus (a wheat disease), and reduced the ability of bean plants to defend themselves against Antracnose.

Furthermore, a study conducted in 2005 by a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh exammined a ponds entire community, foudn taht Roundup caused a 70 percent decline in amphibian biodiveristy and an 86 percent decline in the total mass of tadpoles (which of course are amphibians).