Cotton Seed Distributors - Web on Wednesday

Dr. Angus Crossan, Research Fellow Univesity Sydney, outlines his study on the environmental benefits of Roundup Ready® cotton

Angus, could you give us an update and an overview of your project so far?

We went to look into the use of Roundup Ready or Glysophate with Roundup Ready® cotton compared with other herbicides to see if there was any difference in the environmental risk.

And the study was obviously a very in-depth study. We’ve seen Roundup Ready uptake being fairly high across a lot of valleys. Has that sort of sped up the requirements for doing such a project?

I don’t think the requirements are much more as an interest because with that you mentioned the fast uptake; I think it was 40% in 2 years. It would be interesting to find out how that changes the chemical use, so that’s really the motivation behind it, to look at the changes.

You’re really comparing the use of Roundup in the Roundup Ready system to herbicides, Conventional herbicides in a conventional system?

Yes, we had a series of programs, both conventional and genetically modified, which included Roundup Ready and then comparing those programs and also looking at herbicides specially and looking to see how they fit together to reduce overall risks.

We’re seeing a lot of Roundup and Glysophate used. Has it got any special characteristics that does make it a little bit safer than most of our other herbicides we use?

Yes, generally glysophate’s referred to or believed to be quite innocuous, it’s low mobility, binds very tightly to soil, so it’s not found in run off waters and also it’s get a very low toxicity, which is indicated by the significantly higher ANSEC water quality guideline.

How exactly do you go and do these studies? What sort of procedure do you follow?

Our approach is sort of a feedback mechanism where we use desktop study to identify possible areas where we can then go and do field work and then take some environmental field samples and then use the date to validate any of the assumptions we’ve made in the modeling or the desktop approaches.

And you’re looking at on farm systems and also Riverine environments?

We’re focused on on farm systems and use water quality guidelines for Riverine systems and we’re well aware that they’re generally not combined.

What are the main species that you’re studying as far as doing base line measurements on both on farm and in the riverine environment? 

The toxicity data we used were two species; Rainbow Trout and Daffinia, which is a water flea and they were chosen essentially because there’s readily available toxicity data so we can compare all of the herbicides that were in the study and really it’s a first phase approach to have a look when this data is available and then we put that into the study.

Looking at results now from your study, how long has the study been going?

The study was initiated in 1999 and it took a couple of years but this phase of the work is completed when the process of disseminating that information.

And any results so far in comparing the two conventional herbicides and conventional cotton versus Roundup herbicide in Roundup Ready cotton?

Yeah certainly, each herbicide does exhibit different environmental risks and glysophate was shown to be negligible or quite low in comparison and so depending upon your situation you could select herbicides with an overall lower environmental risk.

And you said the study is just about complete or close to it. Where will that information be available if farmers and consultants and the industry want to go and have a look at it?

Well we’re in the process of publishing a snap shot document which is we hope a good summary that will be available and I can provide a link to that if you like or I can be contacted to post them out.

Looking at the future Angus, will there be any further research done you know with Roundup Ready® Flex Cotton coming through in a couple of years? Do you think there will be another step in the project to take it a little bit further?

I’m not sure exactly, we don’t have any immediate plans but I’m sure ongoing study is always prudent with agro chemical use.

Further Information:  Robert Eveleigh, John Marshall,  Craig McDonald or David Kelly