Glyphosphate
How Glyphosphate Affects Plants
Did you know that the first patent on glyphosate, granted in the 1960s, was as a boiler cleaner and descaler ?Their second patent was granted as an herbicide.
Another patent, applied for in 2003 and granted in 2010, was as an antibiotic and anti-parasitic agent. That patent number is 777 17 36 B2. http://tinyurl.com/l2lv8px
As such, glyphosate interacting with biological systems, be they soils and water, humans, animals or other forms of life, will result in situations in which mineral nutrition is altered and in which bacterial populations are shifted.
Glyphosate will have an adverse effect on all forms of bacteria, but it is especially damaging to beneficial microbial populations, including some species that serve a protective role by controlling some of the pathogenic species. We see this most notably with the Clostridial species of bacteria, with C. perfrigens being removed from the biology, thus enhancing the growth of other pathogenic clostridial species, particularly C. botulinum. Glyphosate also promotes the growth of opportunistic fungi such as Fusarium spp.
Glyphosate will not kill a weed growing in sterile soil. This has been proven several times in published scientific studies.
These plants were all potted in the same soil mixture (the plant in the left pot is growing in sterile soil) and provided the same nutrients. As this photograph shows, the plant in the sterilized soil had a slower growth because of the nutrient tie up caused by glyphosate, but it is far from being dead.
A Edible Bean Plant Sprayed with Glyphosate and growing in sterile soil
B Edible Bean Plant Sprayed with Glyphosate and growing in field soil
C Edible Bean Plant Growing in Field Soil with NO Glyphosate Applied (Control)
We also know that glyphosate enhances the proliferation of fungal pathogens, many of which create mycotoxins.
In the picture below, you will see corn stalks that have been injected with fungal pathogens.
In the corn grown without glyphosate (A), the stalk can wall off the disease and contain the pathogen, limiting its spread and growth.
In the other corn plants (which had glyphosate applied), the plant defense mechanisms are shut down and the fungus grows more aggressively, with increased structural damage to the plant and increased amounts of the pathogenic fungus.
In plants, we use the term defense mechanisms. In humans and animals, we use the term immune system.
Non-glyphosate-tolerant plants that are sprayed with glyphosate die due to secondary "infections" caused by pathogenic organisms. These plants are stressed by the chelation and tying up of nutrients and then exposed to increased concentration of pathogenic organismsconcurrent with a decrease in the beneficial organisms. Natural defense mechanisms shut down and disease kills the plant or weed.
There has been a resurgence of "old and (almost forgotten) plant diseases" - like “take all” in wheat and Goss's Wilt in corn – as well as a growth in diseases, like sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soybeans. This is being witnessed in fields where glyphosate is the predominant herbicide used.
Soils exposed to glyphosate - just as humans and animals exposed to glyphosate - have special nutritional needs. They need extra nutrients to compensate for the chelation (binding and typing up) of the cations (positively charged particles) - particularly Manganese (which controls Calcium metabolism), Calcium, Copper, Selenium, Iodine,..... (and Zinc and Magnesium and Iron and Potassium........ and other positively charged particles).
For a return to optimal function and performance, it also requires reestablishment of beneficial biology to compensate for the biocidal effects of glyphosate. More glyphosate creates more growth of pathogens, including clostridial organisms and mycotoxin producing moulds.
Jim Helfter Memorial Fund for the Advancement of Research and Education Concerning Nutrition, GMOs and Glyphosate
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