By Dan Gunderson,
September 29, 2008
via Ag Weekly
“We had non-Roundup here and the guy over there has Roundup
and I tell you, his look better,” said Watt, ruefully. “It’s not so much now,
but boy, in June it was just night and day difference.”
This field has large areas where a thick crop of pigweed
dwarfs the sugar beets. The weeds are more than a nuisance, they lower crop
yield and cost the farmer thousands of dollars.
“I’m sure those spots that are thick with pigweed you’ll
probably have two, three, four ton less per acre,” Watt said.
It’s hard to control weeds in sugar beets. Traditionally,
the chemicals that kill weeds would also kill the beets.
So farmers applied carefully timed, very
low doses of herbicide several times a year to control the weeds without
killing the beets. They used migrant farm labor to remove the weeds that
escaped the herbicide.
This year, rain kept Watt out of the field when the weeds
were small. By the time he could spray, the weeds were too big to be killed by
the low dose of herbicide, and it was too costly to hire laborers to hoe the
weeds. So the weeds rise about the beets in thick clumps.
But in his neighbor’s field of Roundup Ready beets, there’s
not a weed to be seen. That’s because the beets are genetically modified to be
immune to the broad spectrum weed killer Roundup. So farmers can easily kill
weeds any time without worrying about damaging the beet plants.
Dan Bernhardson, American Crystal
Sugar company director of agriculture, said just over half of the sugar beets
planted this year were the Roundup Ready variety created by Monsanto. He said
farmers who planted the modified sugar beets have a clear advantage in weed
control.
“The other advantage we see is less cultivation of the
field, less passes across the field. Also, the number of times you have to
spray. Most conventional varieties have four applications of spray where
roundup varieties we expect two applications. So, less
trips across the field, less diesel fuel being burned,” Bernhardson
said.
So the farmer saves money on labor and fuel. But that
doesn’t mean the GMO beets are cheaper to grow.
Monsanto charges a technology fee for the seeds - about $60
per acre - which offsets much of the savings. Tests this year show the GMO
beets overall don’t produce higher yields than traditional varieties. That’s
expected to change as the GMO seed is improved over the next couple of years.
Watt has weighed all the costs and variables and says he’s
almost certain to plant all GMO beets next year.
“One of the variables is increased yield. They say it might
be a two-ton increased yield. If that’s the case it will definitely make it
more profitable,” Watt said. “Hopefully the tech fee doesn’t keep increasing
every year. Because once we have Roundup, that’s all we have. We might be
limited to that seed. That part concerns me a little bit.”
Next year American Crystal expects about 90 percent of sugar
beets to be the Roundup Ready variety.
That means seed companies will quickly stop producing
traditional seed varieties. So within two or three years, Roundup Ready will be
the only choice.
Nick Sinner, executive director of the Red River Valley
Sugar Beet Growers Association, said people are concerned about that because
farmers don’t want Monsanto, the creator of the Roundup brand, holding all the
cards when it comes to buying seed.
“We want to have a good working relationship with Monsanto
because they hold the rights to that technology,” Sinner said. “We also think
competition is a great thing, so if there are other technologies that come along
that will work for weed control and keeps everybody honest in the long run, that can be a good thing.”
Farmers are also concerned about a pending lawsuit
challenging the government’s decision to allow the use of GMO sugar beets.
It’s unclear how that case could affect next year’s
planting, since the seed for next year has already been produced.
But despite lingering questions, it appears the benefits of
the herbicide-resistant sugar beet plants have farmers ready to embrace the
change.
agweekly.com