Will Roundup Fast Forward increase or decrease the risk of chemical residues in food?
Promoters expect the chemical will decrease the risk because it allows farmers to apply later than other glyphosate products and still have weeds dried down by harvest time.
But a Saskatchewan Agriculture weed specialist worries Fast Forward will provide another excuse for farmers who want to misuse glyphosate by applying it early.
Roundup Fast Forward is “a great way to control perennial weeds,” Clark Brenzil said. And used correctly it should lessen concerns about glyphosate contamination of grain.
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But producers need to understand the product is meant to be used for weeds, not speeding crop maturity, he said.
“It’s the misuse I’m worried about. It’s the ones that are misunderstanding what it’s used for.”
Roundup Fast Forward uses two actions to kill plants. Regular glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, takes up to two weeks to kill because it slowly starves the plant. But Fast Forward also kills the leaves and stem on contact, making the effect visible in five days or less.
Applying glyphosate before grain crops have less than 30 percent moisture is dangerous because the chemical can be transferred into the heads and contaminate the grain.
Exporters and processors worry about chemical residues in grain because consumers and foreign customers are hostile to food contamination.
Fast Forward maker Monsanto says the advantage of the new product is that it allows the producer to spray late and ensures the green weeds in the field will be dry by harvest.
With other glyphosate treatments, producers would have to wait two weeks before the field weeds were dried down enough for harvest.
That might have made some want to apply glyphosate very early, even too early, said Perry Aulie, Monsanto’s Canadian Roundup manager.
“They thought the sooner they put (the chemical) on, the sooner they’d be able to take (the crop) off,” he said.
Now farmers know they can spray late, and still harvest without worrying about green weeds gumming up the combine.
“I think Fast Forward probably, if anything, will remove some of that incentive farmers maybe felt they had to apply it early,” said Aulie. That means crops will be drier when the chemical is applied, so the risk of contamination will decrease.
Brenzil said he believes most producers will apply it this way and so some of the threat of early glyphosate treatments contaminating grain will diminish.
But for producers who have used glyphosate as a dessicant – an unregistered but known use – Roundup Fast Forward could make the dessicating use even more attractive.
“The people that want to misapply it as a dessicant may be more prone to misapply this product,” Brenzil said.
And there are other dangers.
“Some people when they buy a product want to see it do something,” said Brenzil.
That could prompt some producers to spray a crop earlier than they should so they can see it turn and dry, Brenzil said.
