Roundup Resistance an Increasing Problem

"Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?src=me&ref=business


The larger issue here is how obvious this problem was 15 years ago, to anyone with even a passing understanding of evolution. This should be nothing more than a confirmation of the obvious - providing a selective pressure to a living population will cause that population to evolve in response.

As I have been saying now for years, both online and off, if you spray a field with herbicides, some plants will survive. Due to the randomness of application, the plant's location on the edge of the sprayed area, or a lucky rainstorm, there will be plants that do not receive the full dose of the chemical. Of those, the individual plants who better manage the toxic substance they do receive will more likely survive this reduced dosage and reproduce. Thus, you have created a second generation of plants who are all genetically prepared to better survive exposure to your herbicide.

This is not a war that can be won by brute force, and way too many people are only realizing that now.