Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses known to compete with crops grown widely across the Midwest of the United States.
Initially patented and sold by Monsanto Company in the 1970s under the tradename Roundup, its U.S. patent expired in 2000. Glyphosate is the most used herbicide in the USA. Exact figures are hard to come by because the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped updating its pesticide use database in 2008.
The EPA estimates that in the US during 2007, the agricultural market used 180 to 185 million pounds (82,000 to 84,000 tonnes) of glyphosate, the home and garden market used 5 to 8 million pounds (2,300 to 3,600 tonnes), and industry, commerce and government used 13 to 15 million pounds (5,900 to 6,800 tonnes), according to its Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report for 2006-2007 published in February, 2011. While glyphosate has been associated with deformities in a host of laboratory animals, its impact on humans remains unclear.
Glyphosate's mode of action is to inhibit an enzyme involved in the synthesis of the aromatic amino acids: tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. It is absorbed through foliage and translocated to growing points. Because of this mode of action, it is only effective on actively growing plants; it is not effective as a pre-emergence herbicide.
Some crops have been genetically engineered to be resistant to it (i.e. Roundup Ready, also created by Monsanto Company). Such crops allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence herbicide against both broadleaf and cereal weeds, but the development of similar resistance in some weed species is emerging as a costly problem. Soy was the first Roundup Ready crop.
Click here to download Glyphosate Granules - WDG as PDF
| Glyphosate Granules - WDG (IUPAC) Name |
Glyphosate Granules - WDG Identifiers | Glyphosate Granules - WDG data | ||||||||||||||||||||
| N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine |
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