Roundup - My Friend or Foe?

Why do you suppose Roundup has become such a mystery chemical? It's chemical makeup is not far off from vinegar and salt, so why is it so widely misused and misunderstood? Well, let's first cover what it is and what it isn't.

What it is: A nonselective herbicide created by the Monsanto corp with the primary active ingredient being glyphosate. For years and years, this was protected under patent and made it very expensive to use. This is no longer the case and glyphosate is widely available, marketed under a wide array of product names. Roundup is still the very best known brand of this particular product and still owns the majority of the market share for this particular genre. The Roundup brand now has improvements over the original version by mixing additional herbicides and marketed as Roundup Pro(w/surfactants) & QuickPro(w/diquat). Both upgrades were designed to overcome some shortcomings of the original formulation in percentage of kill (surfactant) and speed of kill(diquat). Monsanto is a huge company and it seems that their focus has been to parlay their expertise with this product line into farm crops that R-up can be sprayed onto with no damage, thereby enabling faster knockout of non resistant weeds with over the top spraying. This is biogenetics folks, engineered food such as corn and soy and it's already in the market. It's their way of continuing to build on their research in a patent protected area. Why is important to you for ornamentals? It's not, I just thought you'd like a little background on where it's been and where it's going.

What is it not : Oddly enough, many, MANY people think this product is a sterilant. That it moves out in the soil and kills big spots of nearby plants. This is actually the opposite of what it is, in fact. Roundup works through foliar absorption, meaning it kills what you hit the leaf of. It is designed to become inert when it hits the soil, in fact, the label tells you to wipe your feet in dirt before walking back across valued plant material like turf. I've actually seen "footprinted" turf! Called out to diagnose what the customer thought was bugs and saw a burned down fence line nearby and pointed out that each spot was roughly the size of a foot and the distance apart like walking. Step in the wet Roundup, walk onto the grass is how this is accomplished! How do other things die then? Because you made a retarded application and sprayed or drifted spray onto other, desirable plants. That little sprayer nozzle that comes with the premix bottle? Fine for your driveway or sidewalk, garbage for controlled spraying.

So what is it good for? Well, as we kind of alluded to above, this is a product that can knock down a whole host of undesirable plant material(weeds) from tree starts, grasses, noxious weeds and on and on. As their ads say, roots and all. Why is that important? Ever break off a weed while pulling it? Oh yeah, you'll be pulling that same sucker over and over for the rest of the year. Kill it out, roots and all, pull it once and you're done with that plant, forever. Does that mean nothing else will ever grow there? No. Like I said above, it's not a sterilant and in fact, it's very common to prepare new seeding beds by killing what's there, tilling it out and seeding, sometimes in a same day window, although I recommend against that to ensure the roots fully get toasted. Knowing that I can kill only what I touch with it with no lingering effects makes this a HUGELY valuable tool for controlling plants in all sorts of situations in the landscape, even problem grasses in turf, if I use it properly.

OK, so then how do I use it properly? Number one is the caliber of equipment you use with it. A quality pump sprayer is an indispensable tool for working with roundup. You'll get better control of the fan and drift making it easier to apply with precision, only killing what you're after. A "wicker" is also a very useful tool. It's a tool that wets a wick with herbicide so that you may just rub it on a plant you want to kill. Where would you use this? On weeds growing up through shrubs or groundcovers, on clumps of undesirable grasses in your turf, etc. Anywhere you just want to kill something right on top of, beneath or around something else you want to keep. Another version of this application method is to use a carwash mitt with protective chemical gloves underneath, wet the mitt(no dripping allowed) then brush what you want gone. Even a foam paintbrush can be used like this. The smaller tool you go, the slower you will be, so make your choices from there. Remember though to properly store or dispose of your tools according to the label on the product you are using. NEVER REUSE ANYTHING THAT HAS CONTAINED ROUNDUP FOR ANYTHING ELSE! No other weeds killers, no bug sprays, nothing. Always treat your sprayer like it has a full mix of R-up in it and go from there. More is better? Only for idiots that like pissing away their money. Mix to the recommended rates and apply to wet the leaf. That's it. Drenching it or mixing up at a "hotter" rate gets you nothing but wasted time and money. In fact, it may even make the plant you sprayed shut off before full uptake, then you've REALLY wasted your money. If you just gotta do it that way, just mix up water and drench the plants then send me the money you would have spent for the R-up, you'll get the same results.

Results? When and what should I expect? Straight glypho(R-up) takes 10-14 days to really do it's thing. You'll see it begin to yellow at first and curl, next it will turn a light tan then finally brown and shrivelled. Big plants or plants with a heavy waxy coating will need a little help sticking to the plant to get kill(remember it does nothing once it hits the soil). This is why they added R-up Pro to the market with a surfactant( think of it as a product meant to make the glypho stick to the plant long enough to be absorbed). You can replicate this, to a minor degree, by adding a squirt of dishsoap to your mix, adding a little more holding power to your R-up if not using the Pro version. The QuickPro version adds a second herbicide(diquat) that burns the plants in the same day. The knock on this is that the plant may get damaged too fast by the diquat to fully take in the glypho(R-up). It usually is a solid performer though, just spendy and available only as a water soluble granule. There are other combos that you can make and they are all covered on the very extensive Roundup label. Get familiar with it, it's safety precautions and it's uses and you too can learn to save yourself huge amounts of time in your landcape using this valuable tool.

So bottom line, it's your friend alright, once you learn what it actually is and how to use it properly. Forget what you assumed before, take a new fresh look and you'll learn to deal like every top pro, everywhere, does with the landscapes in their control.

Have you done something stupid with Roundup you'd like to share? It's ok, you're certainly not alone..lol..let's hear about it!