I am not saying that all chemicals are bad, I don't know enough of the subject to say something about it. All I wanted to say was that glyphosate is used in forests and forestry, as an answer to James Cameron, who suggested that the discussion was not on chemicals in forests. I mean no offence to noone, which is not always that easy, when writing in a language that is not your mother-tongue. I only wanted to contribute to the discussion. To answer to you, Ken, P. serotina is indeed the North American Black Cherry (I had to look it up, so I wrote only the latin name in my first message). It was introduced in Europe (I don't know when), being a productive tree in North America. But due to bad provenance or different soil conditions, it is seldom more than a shrub in Flanders, a worthless tree for wood production. Still, it was planted in the Belgian Campines (a region with poor sandy soils), because, it was said that the leaves would enrich the poor soils with rapid cycling of nutrients. Since the species roots superficially, the rapid cycling is only in favor of and used by the Prunus. This is how it comes that the species is overcompetitive with other more desirable tree species. Therefor, since a few years, mass destruction of the species includes cutting the trees/shrubs and, a year later, treat the sprouts with Roundup. I was taugth the glyphosate in Roundup or other products as Vision, Viking, is harmless to other species, but that one should take care of the impact of the oils used to solve (I think it is) the active chemical (being glyphosate) on the ecosystem. This seems not to be absolutely true. Best regards | > An Baelemans | > Laboratory for forest, Nature and Landscape research | > Vital Decosterstraat 102 B-3000 Leuven | > Tel: + 32 (0) 16 329737 Fax: + 32 (0) 16 329760 | > E-mail: an.baelemans@agr.kuleuven.ac.be
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