Roundup Resistance Forces Farmers To Return to Old Chemistry

Wall Street Journal:

About 42 million acres of soybeans planted in 2012 were treated with non-glyphosate herbicides, double the 2006 total and equivalent to 57% of all soybean acres, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report this year.
Farmers increasingly have turned to some herbicides considered harsher than glyphosate. In 2012, they used more than six million pounds of 2,4-D, nearly four times the 2005 level, according to USDA data. Use of dicamba more than doubled to 87,000 pounds over the same period.
Farmers are having to brush up on their chemistry. Travis Starnes, 36 years old, who grows corn, wheat and soybeans near Monroe, N.C., said he's again relying on a notebook of chemical recipes his family compiled in the early 1990s, before Roundup became dominant, to plan his herbicide use.
"Basically, it's like history repeats itself," Mr. Starnes said.
Thanks to the bigger arsenal, some farmers now say they are gaining ground in their war against the super weeds. In the South—where a longer growing season and warm climate have made it the battle's front line—fewer cotton and soybean acres were lost last year to invaders such as pigweed, marestail and ryegrass, according to farmers, academics and industry officials....
Thanks to the bigger arsenal, some farmers now say they are gaining ground in their war against the super weeds. In the South—where a longer growing season and warm climate have made it the battle's front line—fewer cotton and soybean acres were lost last year to invaders such as pigweed, marestail and ryegrass, according to farmers, academics and industry officials.
"Most [farmers] feel like they are either winning or fighting to a draw," said Bob Scott, a weed science professor at the University of Arkansas. "They're not losing fields anymore."
But success is costly. Some farmers' herbicide expenses have doubled or tripled since resistant weeds set in, cutting deeper into budgets at a time when corn prices are down 38% from their 2012 peak and soybean prices are off by 16%.

I don't know that I'd consider marestail a superweed, but it is frustrating.  But, ryegrass?  That would seem dangerous to use as a cover crop if you are going to have a hard time killing it.  Then again, I'd assume atrazine would cook it pretty good.  As for the "no shit, Sherlock" part of the story, there's over there is even more.  Screw that.this:

Scientists for decades have observed weeds capable of withstanding herbicides, but applying Roundup to the same fields every year speeded up the development of immunity in some weeds, researchers say.

Whodathunkit?  The article finishes with the nightmare scenario for industrial agriculture, hand-weeding:

Meanwhile, some farmers have returned to an expensive, but proven, method of weed control: the hoe.
Hand-weeding, which can cost farmers up to $150 an acre, has again become common in some parts of the country.
Last summer, Heath Whitmore, who farms rice and soybeans near Pine Bluff, Ark., spent a week chopping down palmer amaranth plants that had survived his chemicals. "That's what my dad and my grandfather used to do," he said. "That's what it's reverted back to."

Now that would fricking suck  I've tried knocking down pokeweed in some fields, and it is really easy to see and to knock down.  That seems like a never-ending task.  You hit a whole bunch, then you see even more in another part of the field.  Knock that down, and there's even more over there.  I hate that shit.