Monarch butterflies and roundup

JML755

Well-known Member
Lot of you might have heard of this already but treehuggers are pushing to eliminate Roundup to save the monarch butterfly. Looks like farmers are going to have to go back to weeding.

[/url]http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/03/05/group-sues-epa-butterfly-preservation-efforts/24417499/
 
Until Glyphosate, milkweed was indestructible chemically. It was never a bad weed, just kind of there. With Glyphosate, the fields are clean and the monarchs have no where to lay their eggs. They're really getting it from both ends - destruction of winter habitat in Mexico, and destruction of summer habitat in the US.

Will they survive? Who knows. Will a Glyphosate ban save them? Not likely. About the only thing that will save most things on this planet is much, much less people...
 
Well if they (the whining tree huggers) keep it up one of these
days they will sit down to dinner and there'll be nothing to put on
their plate.

Ever heard of anyone getting stomach cramps or dying from GM
seeds?

Know how long GM seeds have been around?

Know how productive farming is today with GM seeds?

I do!

Monarch's come by the place every year along with several other
species headed to Mexico. Why they pick Spring to migrate
south beats me. I used to think the bag worm infestation I get
every spring on my Cedar trees was butterfly initiated as about a
month after they go by I get a million of them on 160 Cedars I
use for a wind/noise/privacy break, which if not controlled by a
nasty old environmentally unfriendly, butterfly killing, menacing
pesticide will kill the trees. But that's OK. The huggers said so!

After reading a few articles, probably penned by huggers, I'm not
sure now. Obviously they come from somewhere and the worm
is the larvae for something.

Mark
 
I used to pull milkweeds out of flower beds, until
I learned milkweeds is the only thing Monarch
butterflies eat. Now I leave them alone.
 
whats wrong with a little work....ride your tractor...think
how much round up is being sprayed in america.. i live in
ga..and on a no spray list from the power company,cause i have
a well by the right away,that they used to cutt...but over the
years they have been spraying,5 different chemicals,,it was a
sub contractor foriegners,couldnt speak english...my wife told
them no.. but they sprayed any ways...if my grandkids went thru
where they sprayed wpickin blk berries and...there are
no signs saying , just sprayed...it doesnt turn brown for a week...i
live in the sticks in ga...by lake hartwell,barely any boats on that
lake compared to other lakes with more traffic...but its a known
fact you cant eat the fish....think about how much chemical is
getting sprayed in the us....the power company,railroad,phone
,county and farmer...i wonder where cancers are coming
frommm...besides what happen to alittle work,,i love bush
hoggin,,,,just start noticing the brown patches while you drive
this summer.....miles an miles, gallons and gallons...that
chemical has to go somewhere.....i hope my grandkids could eat
some fish in the future.....an i hope they like trees to,cause with
out them you wont be gardening.....lol dewy
 
Article i read the other day says they are developing a new seed thats resistant to Round-Up for the Monarch
 
I think there are a lot of people looking for any excuse to ban ROUNDUP and other chems.As far as the milkweed,we haven't had any milkweed plants on pasture ground since taking livestock off the ground and this is ground THAT HAS NEVER HAD THE FIRST DROP OF ROUNDUP or any spray on it.No good answer for it but this is on several hundred acres.
 
I think pressure from all sides is to blame. These days EVERY road side is mowed. A lot of milkweed is grown right there. Every lawn and vacant lot is treated with 24D for broadleaf too. I think RU is to blame for a lot including pressure on bees but so is any pest/herbicide. A while ago there was big article in the Detroit Free Press about the Monarch thing. I think they ought to take some of the bombed out wasteland that is Detroit and plant several big fields of milkweed! As a matter of fact they could plant a field in every city on a block or two.
 
All I can say is hope you do not get hungry. Banning roundup will cause food cost to go up quick. Try farming 4000 acres without chemical weed and grass control.. I know the argument yes they use too... yes but they use to other things too but simply put we cannot feed the world with chemical help. Milkweed maybe we could let them grow on the roadsides I do not deny that but don,t know how it will affect the butterflies.
 
A friend of mine who is a farmer mentioned not seeing milkweed around much anymore and not much for butterflies either. I remember when I was out cutting a waterway years ago. I bet there were anywhere from 500 to 800 monarch butterflies there on some of the weeds and in the trees. Was quite a sight. I wish I could have taken a picture.
 
No reason to make food prices go up we just need to
quit feeding our economic enemies the Communist Chinese and burning up corn for fuel.Do you eat field corn and soybeans?
Walk into to any mall or Walmart in the USA and its easy to see not many even close to going hungry(LOL)
 
Well, if the tree huggers are really serious, they would rip up their lawns and gardens and plant them with milkweed----lets see how they would like that!

Ben
 
We never had milkweed here until the last 15 years or so, its infesting our fields now. I hand pull and spot spray with roundup until I'm blue in the face and can barely slow down its march through my hay fields.

One field I'd say 50% of the biomass is now milkweed. Makes poor unmarketable hay and terrible pasture.
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In TX. we have a large wildflower population especially along the road right-of-ways. Course the state flower is the Bluebonnet which is just a weed.

When LBJ was "elpresidente" Lady Bird made the TX Dept of Transp. stop contractors from mowing the roadsides until the flowers had time to bloom and seed out. So you had, in some cases 2' or so of dense roadside vegetation until late summer.

On one occasion, on the way to work, an ambulance approached from the opposite direction on a narrow 2 lane road with just such. I couldn't pull over so I just stopped as is the law to get over and stop.

In my rear view mirror I saw this car coming at me obviously with no intention of stopping. Was a mom with a car load of kids and either she didn't know the law or was distracted by the occupants.

At the last minute I realized she was going to smack me and I stomped the accelerator as hard as I could. Going to bet if my bumper would have had a coat of paint it would have been hit.

We continued up the road and at the first place to turn around she did. I can only imagine that she had to run back home and .................

Mark
 
Around here you can tell those who try and don't by the mass. It has so many seeds and they are so prolific that in no time it will take over a field. Glyphospate in a spot sprayer works best for me. It's time consuming, but it takes a lot of product to get them which is impractical from a large spraying system.

One thing I really hate about it is the "parachutes" that land on my pastures from those unattended. Really chaps me.

Mark
 
You should read up on what we do with the corn after the alchol is removed. It feeds all livestock for just one. Did you know there are 600 products made from corn and we still feed the world and still have a surpluss.
 
Gene I have learned a long time ago not going to win an argument with the tree huggers. I THINK ever bit of what I raise feeds something with the exception of the corn we sell to the distillery and then like you said the spent grain still goes to livestock
 
I assume some people here figure there are only
two sets of people - "tree huggers" and the "rest
of us?"

I see myself in the middle and to classify anyone
with concern with wildlife destruction as a "tree
huggers" is just plain idiotic.

I love trees by the way. Love the way they look,
love they way they grow, and love the heat they
make when cut them down and burn them.

There is no doubt in my mind that "Roundup" and
it's generic versions is WAY overused. All modern
farming as done today is on borrowed time and
won't work once petroleum gets in short supply.
There is NOTHING wrong with having concern for
Monarch butterflies as well as other living things
. There are plenty of work-arounds to the milkweed
shortage problem. But there are also many other
problems with Roundup other then these
butterflies.
 
That's where I'm at on this whole food fad crap and all that goes with it. You'd think they'd get tired of being in a frenzy and mad at the world eventually,but all we can do is let them burn themselves out I guess.
Somebody will dangle something shinny in front of their faces eventually and they'll move on.
 
What's missing from this issue is what is a normal population of Monarchs. They need milkweed. Milkweed needs open space to grow. I never see it growing in the woods. 500 years ago the eastern half of the continent was nearly unbroken woodland and likely had little milkweed growing. A normal population of Monarchs in the "new" world in it's primordial state was probably rather small by today's standards.
 
Most farmers cant afford to over use round up. Costs to much to do so. What do you mean when you say that farming is on borrowed time? Can you elaborate?
 
I'm about as far from a tree hugger as you'll ever find but lets be realistic the only people that really benefit from the system we have now are a few companies like Monsanto,some grain farmers,some farm machinery companies and commodity traders.Selling the Chinese cheap food to feed their slave labor to send products back to the USA to bankrupt our manufacturers is crazy and its all financed by the US Taxpayers by way of guaranteed ag loans,Gov't crop insurance, subsidies and the Export/Import bank.
 
I grew corn last year on a larger scale for the first time. The rumors that this action was solely responsible for the collapse of corn prices are likely true. It is hard work. Doesn't look like it, but one of the most stressful years I have ever had. Roundup application was about the only thing that went right. And no, I do not over apply. It is not applied to Monarchs. They have no reason to be in the cornfield in June. So I guess the fact that I kill the milkweed in my fields is the issue. If any group wants to do a fundraiser and give me money to live on, I will happily plant milkweed. It's a pretty plant and I like the butterflys. Like the previous poster, I also love the big trees on my place and all the wildlife and flowers...so please stop calling me names. I am also in the middle. I tend the land and take care of nature too.
 
I said "modern" farming is o borrowed time. That because it is based so heavily on petroleum. For the herbicides, for the pesticides, for fertilizer, for running tractors, for moving farm goods, etc.
 
That was kind of my point. On both sides of issue, there are idiots and also those that want to be good stewards of the earth. The talk as though the only opposition is composed of "cluelss tree-huggers" is idiotic.
 
I'd like to see it go back to tillage and cultivating and more guys farming. I don't care if its hard on the 4000 acre guys because the 4000 acre guys are hard on the rest of us who aren't trying to farm the entire county. This is coming from a Midwest farmer. It's gotten too easy and you look around at the guys that are just grain farming, especially the kids who have never known anything but air conditioned 8 to 12 row combines. They spend a half day in an 80 acre field and just call John Deere if it ever breaks down. Or running center fill auto steer planters no-tilling and hiring the spraying out to the fertilizer dealer. A little time on an open cab tractor all Summer might just be the best thing for everyone. Heck while we're at it lets throw in some livestock too.
 
Interesting comments about milkweed. This mite be interesting to the younger crowd, As a kid, I remember picking milkweed pods for the war effort during WW 2. It was said that the silk like threads in the pods were used in making parachutes. I picked lots of those neat looking pods. clint
 
Well Olclint, I remember picking milkweed pods during the big war. I believe they were used to stuff life jackets for the military.
There are lots of the milk weed growing around my land and in my crop and hay meadows but not enough to cause me any concern. I also see many monarch butteries around here and there seems to be as many as usual.
 
I agree completely. Ironically, if you walk to the bottom of the drive there is a ditch. Growing in the ditch is a large stand of milkweed. I do not spray them or cut them. I check them a couple times a week for Monarch caterpillars. Been doing it for years. I just find them interesting.
 
Same feeling here, we have some roundup used on our fields, but it has little effect on milk weed, That is one tough weed to kill and roundup is not the herbicide of choice for that job.
 
Mark-IA,
The pic isn't very well focused. The milkweeds in Indiana seem to have fatter leafs, much taller and leafs are spaced farther apart.

My milkweeds are growing in a gravel pit, just sand and gravel where most things won't grow.

I've been working on making dirt. Using free wood chips the tree trimmers cleaning under power lines were glad to leave me. Leafs I vacuum up in the fall. And a Friend is glad to deliver his horse poo, which is mixed with the hay horse walk on. The guy with horses uses sawdust for stalls along with putting lime down in a attempt to keep the smell down. Let that stuff sit for a year, mix it up a little, add a little dirt. I put hills of my dirt in gravel pit and flowers think it's miracle grow. The Indiana Milkweeds like it along with the plants in the garden.
 
It doesn't grow up or get big because it is mowed-clipped once or twice a year.I could put it all in corn-beans,but I'am happy the way things are going now and all the silos and equipment are gone now anyway.
 
So JD how do you see us feeding the masses and farming changing. Are you saying I should go back to manual control of weed and grasses? probably would cause more fuel used than chemicals it cuts out. I am just trying to figure out where you think modern ag should make changes. We use larger tractors to be more efficient. We use modern seed to produce more.
I just cannot see farming going back to where it was 50 years ago and the price of food not taking a huge leap.
The difference in investment and return from 1960 to now days is just unbelievable for most folks that do not farm on a large scale.
 
The word you're looking for is "conservationist" I believe. The person that is a good steward of the land. The person who carefully manages his natural resources because it's in his financial best interest to do so.
 
60 years ago, dad paid us kids a penny for every milkweed we pulled out of the beans. I could only count to 10 at the time, so I would put a mark on a piece of paper every time I got 10.
 
That is all fine but the question is who is going to do that..The dollar will just not let it happen. In early 60s I farmed about a 800 acres with less than a 100 thousand dollars worth of equipment. Was lucky to walk away at the end of the year with 50/60 thousand everything paid. Now have probably little over half million in equipment working 4400 acres. Good years make pretty good but some years just a living. I just cannot see it going back to way it was as bad as you guys would like for it to.
 
That's good that its getting mowed. Sometimes guys just let them grow up when they quit having animals around here.
 
(quoted from post at 11:23:59 03/05/15)
I see myself in the middle and to classify anyone
with concern with wildlife destruction as a "tree
huggers" is just plain idiotic.

Ya, all the treehuggers say that kind of thing....
 
Interesting comments, especially regarding "tree-huggers" and "stewards of the land". When I think of the term "tree-hugger" I think of someone who has a knee-jerk reaction to ANY disturbance of the land (or water or air) for beneficial purposes, especially if it's more PC than logical. What comes to mind are those who climb trees or put nails in them to prevent logging yet live in wood houses. Or those who protest against a new power plant yet scream if their power is out for an hour or two. Many of my kid's friends are like that (avowed vegans or vegetarians with a complete disdain for what their parents' generation has done to "mother earth")

I also believe that farmers are, generally speaking, good stewards of THEIR land. Why would they want to destroy their means of livelihood? That being said, one could argue that the use of pesticides and such is allowing them to profit "unnaturally" from their land to the detriment of surrounding resources, which they don't own (air, water).

As for the butterfly, I have mixed feelings when I drive onto my property to brush-hog some fields just to keep them "clean" until I can build on it. I note the large number of flying/jumping insects, butterflies and such that bound over the knee-high grass/flowers. Then when I'm done, I have more mixed feelings because I proudly look over my clean field devoid of brush and small branches and such but I know that there are a lot of bugs wondering "what the heck was that?" and have to move off in search of new homes/food.

In any case, I don't think the answer is a complete ban on cutting milkweed, which I think the logical argument would be for a true "tree-hugger"
 
You are correct that according to what scientists believe, butterflies of any type were rare in prehistoric times.

Back during pre-white-man days in the "New World" before the 1500s, I suppose the northeast had its share of fields either in natural glens or the result of broken beaver dams.

I don't regard the historic-populations of Monarch butterflies to be a key issue here. What is - at least to me - is the unecessary eradication of any sort of wildlife. As "smart" as modern wildlife and science experts like to sound - there is ONE thing they have proven over and over. We do not understand all the interrelationships of forms of life on this planet, small or large. The milkweed "shortage" is just one factor in the demise of Monarch butterflies. General deforestation is another. All are tied to humans populating unchecked and trying to maintain a lifestyle as if natural resources are unlimited.
I don't have any proposed solutions for long-term except of having better population control for humans - which likely will NEVER happen due to any plan. Disaster? Maybe. Lots of wildlife issues going on besides butterflies. Like the bat and honey bee demise? Lets see how well farming goes when all the bees are gone and we have to pollinate by hand like they do in Japan.

My wife and I certainly do not fit of def. of "tree huggers" used here in my opinion. Do we kill things just for fun or because they propose an "inconvenience? No. Do we live a lifestyle that is dependent on modern science, medicine, and unrenewable resources? Yes. Kind of hard not too.

That all said, I don't buy the idea that we are the only living entity on earth that has importance nor do I believe anyone gave us "dominion." "Stewardship" maybe. If so, that means a "loan" and we are supposed to try to give back what we borrowed in "good shape" if possible.

On a sidenote - someone mentioned the idea of "ripping up a lawn" and planting milkweed - as if nobody would ever want to do it? We did not "rip up" our lawn, but we did stop mowing it over 10 years ago. My wife and I find it kind of amazing how many wild plants have grown since we stopped mowing. We did NOT plant any milkweed but plenty is there. In my fields though, I still use a generic form of Roundup, along with Bicep Lite and Prowl. We tried some "Three Sisters" farming for awhile like the Huron and Iroquois Indians used to do (pole beans, squash, and corn intermixed). Lot of work and doesn't work so great with tall corn. The Indians used short corn that was not so nutrient dependent.
 
The question was, before the white man came and cleared the forests in the eastern half of the country for fields, making room for the milkweed to grow, what was the population of monarch butterflies? What is being presented to us as a disaster may be simply a return to historic ranges.

Similar to the short video Discover had about accelerated evolution of cliff swallows in Nebraska. Some study started counting them and measuring dead ones on the side of I-80 after it was completed, and they found that they are developing shorter wingspans to be more nimble flyers and dodge traffic getting to their nests.

No mention was made of what effect the building of countless miles of safe nesting sites (the underside the bridges that carry the interstate 455 miles across Nebraska) had on the population to begin with.
 

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