Two years ago in 2017, scientists with the USGS and the University of Iowa first reported that neonicotinoid insecticides were “persistent” in drinking water samples collected at the University’s Iowa City campus during a seven week period after the corn planting season (May-July). The reason why was no mystery — at least 80% of the GMO […]
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A duo of research scientists from Australian universities have conducted an extensive review of global data on insect populations, with stark results. Their analysis of 73 historical reports was published this month in the journal Biological Conservation. It reveals “dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world’s insect species over the […]
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Three new Xtend-dicamba related items have been posted recently on Hygeia. Collectively they frame what is to come as farmers and herbicide applicators begin the 2019 herbicide spray season. In a fact-filled piece in DTN, Emily Unglesbee traces the march of glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth across the southeast, and then to the north and west. This […]
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Dan Charles, NPR’s widely respected food and agriculture correspondent, has written extensively about the dicamba drift crisis over the past couple of years (here are just a few of his pieces that were posted to the Managing Weeds for Healthy Kids site). In his latest NPR piece entitled “Is Fear Driving Sales Of Monsanto’s Dicamba-Proof Soybeans?,” he […]
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In just a couple more months, Arkansas farmers will be planting soybeans in their fields again. So, that means another contentious round of meetings and hearings so the Arkansas Plant Board can decide how and when soybean farmers will be able to spray dicamba on their fields. The dicamba drift disaster of the last couple […]
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DTN staff reporter Emily Unglesbee has ably covered the dicamba-drift crisis over the past couple of years. Her latest is a detailed, three-part series on Palmer amaranth, “possibly the most aggressive weed American farmers have ever faced” (Unglesbee, 2019a). Palmer amaranth is so scary because of its “spectacular reproductive abilities” and it’s extreme adaptability. This […]
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Phosphorous is a key nutrient promoting plant growth, and a standard ingredient in many fertilizer blends. But if too much phosphorous ends up in the region’s watershed, it can wreck havoc on wetlands, streams, and lakes, causing harmful algae blooms (like the extreme cyanobacteria algae blooms in Lake Erie last year) and depletion of dissolved […]
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Two new publications were released in the last week that contribute much new food for thought in the global discussion around the sustainability of the Earth’s food systems. First off, on January 16th the Lancet published a special feature called “Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems.” As Reuters reports, […]
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It’s not just leaves that have been falling this season, the past months have seen several intense climate change reports drop on us too. First up was the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an exhaustive report on what it will take to keep warming under a critical limit, “Global Warming of 1.5° C.” […]
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Note to Hygeia Readers — Ford Baldwin is a weed scientist that has worked to promote integrated weed management systems in Arkansas over a long career. In fact, his contribution was recognized this year when he was inducted into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame. He has been deeply involved since 2016 in trying to […]
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