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Re: Glyphosate and pets

At 11:57 AM 1/6/98 +0100, you wrote:
>I bought some glyphosate after all of your immensely useful
>recommendations, but the store-owner told me to keep any pets away for
>at least 24 hours, and the Italian instructions looked fairly scary.
>Before I start my marathon, I must ask what precautions other listers
>have taken (or not taken and paid the price) with glyphosate and pets?"

Marina & Anthony:

During a job interview at Monsanto for their Roundup project about 20 years
ago, I learned that the compound glyphosphate is very easily biodegraded
over the initial 24-hour application span.  Besides its ability to jam up
the Krebs photosynthesis cycle, it is almost a perfect culture medium for
microflora, especially molds.  I don't recall its toxicity to animal life,
but it should be quite low.  Pets would have to brush by an awful lot of
foliage while it is wet, then lick it off themselves to cause any problem.
Grazing animals (goats, sheep, birds) are probably the most likely species
to be affected by ingesting foliage.

The best clue would be to check out its toxicity to fish.  Runoff from most
insecticides and herbicides killing fish in nearby bodies of water is a
benchmark problem for most agricultural chemicals.  Perhaps someone else
more knowledgeable can pick up the thread here.

Rich Dufresne
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