19 Facts About Glyphosate

Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant.

Glyphosate is absorbed through foliage, and minimally through roots, and transported to growing points.

Glyphosate was first synthesized in 1950 by Swiss chemist Henry Martin, who worked for the Swiss company Cilag.

Glyphosate is an aminophosphonic analogue of the natural amino acid glycine and, like all amino acids, exists in different ionic states depending on pH.

Glyphosate is marketed in the United States and worldwide by many agrochemical companies, in different solution strengths and with various adjuvants, under dozens of tradenames.

Related searches

Glyphosate is an acid molecule, so it is formulated as a salt for packaging and handling.

Glyphosate interferes with the shikimate pathway, which produces the aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan in plants and microorganisms – but does not exist in the genome of animals, including humans.

Glyphosate is absorbed through foliage and minimally through roots, meaning that it is only effective on actively growing plants and cannot prevent seeds from germinating.

Glyphosate is effective in killing a wide variety of plants, including grasses and broadleaf and woody plants.

Glyphosate and related herbicides are often used in invasive species eradication and habitat restoration, especially to enhance native plant establishment in prairie ecosystems.

Glyphosate is used to clear railroad tracks and get rid of unwanted aquatic vegetation.

Glyphosate is used for crop desiccation to increase harvest yield and uniformity.

Glyphosate itself is not a chemical desiccant; rather glyphosate application just before harvest kills the crop plants so that the food crop dries from environmental conditions more quickly and evenly.

Glyphosate is readily degraded by soil microbes to aminomethylphosphonic acid .

Glyphosate does have the potential to contaminate surface waters due to its aquatic use patterns and through erosion, as it adsorbs to colloidal soil particles suspended in runoff.

Glyphosate is generally less persistent in water than in soil, with 12- to 60-day persistence observed in Canadian ponds, although persistence of over a year has been recorded in the sediments of American ponds.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in herbicide formulations containing it.

Glyphosate was listed as "known to the State of California to cause cancer" in 2017, requiring warning labels under Proposition 65.

Glyphosate was first approved for use in the 1970s, and as of 2010 was labelled for use in 130 countries.