Cardamine hirsuta

ds429@comcast.net ds429@comcast.net
Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:55:24 PDT

Dear Christian, 



Just today an amateur gardener friend asked me to identify a plant that was beginning to invade his yard from his neighbors. It is our local Cardamine sp. C. bulbosa? Here it is called "bitter cress."  It is one of the nastiest weeds that I have encountered here. I do not use Roundup, but I have found that hand weeding has some effect on it. The problem with our species is that, if you don't root it out before it goes to seed, you have lost the battle because it shoots out the seeds when the pods are ripe. 

I would eat it , except that it is extremely bitter, even when it is young. 


And  if I had an infestation of Worsleya, especially the white one, or of the pink Pamianthe, or the red Hymenocallis, I think I would probably also choose hand weeding. 



Dell in SE Pennsylvania 


----- Original Message -----


From: "Christian Lachaud" <christian.lachaud@gmail.com> 
To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org 
Sent: Monday, April 1, 2013 5:22:21 PM 
Subject: [pbs] Cardamine hirsuta 

Dear all, 

I would like to ask your advise about Cardamine hirsuta. 

Few gardener friends and I have noticed that roundup herbicide activates 
the seeds of Cardamine hirsuta, that are asleep in the soil (by the way, I 
ignore how long the seeds of this plant survive asleep). 

In areas that were free of Cardamine the previous years, treated with 
roundup during the summer, a dense population of this plant is sure to be 
found next spring. However, this burst has nothing to do with cleanness of 
the area after herbicide application, because other places manually weeded 
will never exhibit the phenomenon. Roundup application and Cardamine 
infestation is so highly correlated that people here use to say that 
roundup "makes it come". 

I know that there has been some cases of genetic pollution from GMO into 
wild species through pollen. I ignore if some GMOs requiring roundup to get 
their seeds activated do exist ? If yes, wouldn't this example be one such 
case of genetic pollution accident ? Have people observed this phenomenon 
elsewhere in the world ? 

It is worth asking the question since some people eat Cardamine hirsuta and 
advertise it as delicious. However, if it had been turned accidentally into 
a wild GMO requiring roundup to wake up and grow, would it be that safe for 
human health ? 

Any comments, ideas, and tracks will be much appreciated - Many thanks. 


*Dr. Christian M. Lachaud, PhD* 
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