I stand corrected, Glenn. I've got a lot of that (your mulching is still much neater than mine, though). In my experience, that sort of grass right near the trunk (as opposed to rooted in the mulch) is really hard to get rid of by hand pulling b/c the roots rarely come out of my heavy red clay, even when it is moist. I'd probably hand pull a few times and, if it keeps coming back, wrap the trunk in a protective layer (aluminum foil or tree wrap?), cut the grass with scissors, and dab some diluted roundup on the cut ends with a Q-tip. I use cardboard further away from the trunk, but I don't think it would be a good idea or that effective to put the cardboard that close to the trunk.

That's very interesting. Sounds like a good stewardship method, although maybe not for fruit trees which don't always coexist well with broad leaf herbs. They tend to harbor stink bugs and some other fruit pests.

Yep, GMO sugar beets are being cultivated in the US. Their approval was revoked in 2010 but that has since been overturned in 2012. Via wikipedia: "On August 13, 2010, Judge White revoked the deregulation of glyphosate-resistant sugar beets and declared it unlawful for growers to plant glyphosate-resistant sugar beets in the spring of 2011. As a result of this ruling, growers were permitted to harvest and process their crop at the end of the 2010 growing season, yet a ban on new plantings was enacted...On February 4, 2011, the USDA-APHIS announced glyphosate-resistant sugar beets had been partially deregulated and growers would be allowed to plant seed from spring 2011 until an EIS (environmental impact statement) is completed...In July 2012, after completing an environmental impact assessment and a plant pest risk assessment the USDA deregulated Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets." Jill- At the risk of taking this thread further off topic, if you're wanting to grow grains I suggest reading Small-Scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon. It's a very interesting book. I could hardly put it down even though I haven't got the space to grow grains. Rodney Here is a link that might be useful: Sugar Beet- Genetic Modification

Why contribute to the financial support of a product that is used in larger applications? I'm not contributing any financial support. I buy it to use it.It serves a need, and I pay money to serve that need. I buy a bag or two of concrete too, and look at what our cities do with concrete. I buy some gallons of gasoline, and look at how the petrochemical companies contribute to pollution. Horrors. Am I contributing to those products as well? If you spray it in a sidewalk crack...and a pet or a bird or a bug or a worm gets in that crack...what happens? Uh, I don't know. I don't much care about the bug or worm. A pet getting into a sidewalk crack? Get real. My dog sure wouldn't fit. In any case, probably nothing. If a thousand homeowners in a community spray it in their sidewalk cracks on a Saturday morning...and a big rain shower hits Saturday afternoon...and all that poison is washed from the sidewalks past the curbs and down the streets into the gutters...and it all flows into a local retention pond where Canadian Geese drink...or into a lake that serves as a municipal water source...or into a stream where people fish...what happens? Actually, probably nothing. Have we seen any major bird kills or fish kills that were found or even suspected to be caused by Roundup? You're reaching, and possibly just making stuff up, like using the word "poison" in the first place. No one else is using that word. Actually, it doesn't take 15 seconds to stoop down and remove a weed from a crack. You pull out the foliage, and the root stays there, and grows again, and expands the crack. It would take a lot longer if I had to stoop down with a knife and chisel. I'd probably cut myself and scrape my knee and come away with tetanus, no? So much for risks. Are we saving lives or feeding starving people with the Roundup that we use on our residential properties? ... But how is Roundup in a sidewalk crack worth the risks? Good heavens. Are we saving lives or feeding starving people with the truckloads of nitrates we dump on our lawns (which get washed into the aquifer and do damage there, as well as pose some health risks)? Are we saving lives or feeding starving people with our lawnmowers, trimming our lawns to look like golf courses? Are we saving lives or feeding starving people by planting lawns in the first place? Or even planting canteloupes? Geez, I could be planting some source of protein instead! Now you're really reaching. Roundup is worth the risk because, quite frankly, the risk appears to be quite small. I want to be responsible about the environment, but we're not doing anyone any favors by being pseudo-responsible. That's what this argument is about. It's about pretending to be sincerely responsible. I think it is smart to consider glyphosates as a possible low-level (class 2b carcinogen) hazard, and to use them with some care, but it makes no sense, nor does anyone a lot of good, to use glyphosates to distract us from more serious and recognized hazards. Oh, let me add to miradus01, who may have departed, but who said ... Why have we discontinued every single chemical that we have ever developed for use in agriculture? Because time after time they were all shown to be harmful. That's positively nuts. Most of what we apply to our crops has never been shown to be harmful. Our phosphate supplements? Our nitrogen supplements? We've stopped using those because they produced "horrific birth defects" and cancer? Really? Sure, there have been some supplements and insecticides that were determined to be harmful, and we fortunately stopped using them. But this comment doesn't address health threats. Rather it addresses the threat posed by that scary word "chemical". If you roll the "ch" it sounds even scarier. I don't think the Texas Gardening forum is a particularly good place to debate Roundup, and the alleged dishonesty of the US government. So I too will conclude. Apologies to the TG readership who had to endure this.