July 29, 2016
CapitalPress.com
9
OSU researcher targets weeds
Carol Mallory-Smith
Capital Press
CORVALLIS, Ore. — In the
world of weed control, Carol
Mallory-Smith believes what’s
old is becoming new again.
During her lifetime, the
Oregon State University weed
science professor has seen ag-
riculture’s approach to battling
weeds come full circle.
Farmers such as Mallo-
ry-Smith’s father didn’t have
access to the multitude of her-
bicides available today, which
meant they had to till weeds
or suppress them with cover
crops.
The popularity of those
methods receded with the rise
of chemical solutions, but with
increased weed resistance to
herbicides, Mallory-Smith ex-
pects farmers will again be em-
ploying them.
Herbicides will remain an
important part of modern farm-
ing, but growers will likely
use them more strategically in
conjunction with non-chemical
controls to ensure they stay ef-
fective, she said.
“It will be looking at the old
techniques with a brand new
eye,” Mallory-Smith said.
The advent of herbicides
has been revolutionary, allow-
ing growers to kill weeds more
quickly and thus cultivate a
greater number of acres, mak-
ing crop production more efi-
cient, she said.
Yields and crop quality im-
proved, particularly with the
availability of selective herbi-
cides that were able to target
broadleaf or grass weeds while
minimizing the harm to desir-
able plants.
“It changed agriculture dra-
matically,” Mallory-Smith said.
Unfortunately, weeds have
demonstrated the ability to ight
back.
When weed populations
are repeatedly sprayed with a
chemical, some hardy individu-
als will withstand the substance
and then pass that trait to their
progeny. Over time, the genetic
Occupation: Weed science professor at Oregon State University
Education: Ph.D. in plant science from the University of Idaho in
1990, bachelor of science in plant protection from the University of
Idaho in 1986
Age: 67
Hometown: Albany, Ore.
Family: Husband, Robert, four grown children and 12 grandchil-
dren
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Carol Mallory-Smith, a weed science professor at Oregon State
University, studies herbicides that can be used on specialty crops
in the Northwest and in recent years has also been drawn into
some of the controversies over genetic engineering.
tolerance becomes more wide-
spread and reduces the herbi-
cide’s effectiveness.
That process can occur
faster than anticipated, as Mal-
lory-Smith found out while
studying for her doctorate,
when she identiied one of the
irst weeds resistant to the sul-
fonylurea class of herbicides.
The prickly lettuce was dis-
covered in a ield where the
University of Idaho had con-
ducted research for years. As it
turned out, a high mutation rate
allowed the weed to overcome
the chemical’s enzyme-inhibit-
ing properties.
“It was unexpected. The
chemistry was really new,” she
said.
Herbicide resistance has be-
come an even more prominent
issue in agriculture due to its
association with genetic engi-
neering.
Major commodity crops,
including corn, soybeans and
cotton, have often been genet-
ically modiied to withstand
herbicides such as glyphosate.
The technology makes kill-
ing weeds easier without hurt-
ing crops, but the increased
reliance on herbicides has also
caused more weeds to develop
resistance.
Mallory-Smith considers
herself an “agnostic” when it
comes to genetic engineering,
but thinks herbicide-resistant
crops could have been man-
aged more carefully.
The agricultural industry
embraced the technology, be-
lieving it would “solve all our
problems,” without relying
enough on tactics that would
slow the adaptation of weeds,
she said. “Now we’re sort of
back where we started.”
The phenomenon of geneti-
cally engineered crops spurring
herbicide resistance in weeds is
primarily occurring in the Mid-
west, where commodity crops
are grown.
However, that fact has hard-
ly insulated Mallory-Smith
from the controversies sur-
rounding biotechnology.
Her involvement in the
2013 discovery of biotech
wheat growing unauthorized in
an Eastern Oregon ield was a
notable episode that attracted
global attention.
When a farmer realized
that some of his volunteer
wheat wasn’t dying after be-
ing sprayed with glyphosate,
he brought samples to OSU for
analysis.
Mallory-Smith
believed
there was “no way” the herbi-
cide-resistant wheat was a genet-
ically engineered by Monsanto,
since research and development
of that cultivar had been halted a
decade earlier.
“It made no sense that it
would be,” she said.
DNA testing of the wheat
revealed that it was, in fact, the
Monsanto variety, which had nev-
er been deregulated by USDA.
Its source was never discov-
ered, but the inding did tem-
porarily disrupt Asian export
markets and resulted in a class
action lawsuit by farmers that
Monsanto eventually settled for
$2.7 million.
Mallory-Smith was also
drawn into a long-running
dispute over glyphosate-resis-
tant sugar beets, which were
the subject of several lawsuits
by biotech critics before the
USDA ultimately deregulated
them in 2012.
The plaintiffs bolstered their
request for an injunction against
the crop with a written declaration
from Mallory-Smith stating that vi-
able roots of the transgenic variety
had been found in compost mix.
The incident was cited as an exam-
ple of the dificulty containing the
crop.
Monsanto also relied on
Mallory-Smith in its argu-
ments against an injunction
with a declaration in which she
supported the company’s safe-
guards for growing the crop
while USDA studied its envi-
ronmental impacts.
It’s painful to watch such
conlicts erupt within agricul-
ture, Mallory-Smith said. Her
philosophy is to approach such
disputes as forthrightly as pos-
sible.
“Sometimes it’s going to
be ine, sometimes people are
going to be upset with you,”
she said.
Currently, Mallory-Smith
is studying a subject that’s
touchy among farmers and
seed companies in Oregon’s
Willamette Valley: canola pro-
duction.
When state lawmakers im-
posed a moratorium on most
canola production in the re-
gion, they also directed OSU
to conduct a three-year study
on weed, disease and pest risks
posed by the crop.
Specialty seed companies
fear such problems will in-
crease if it becomes prevalent,
but the possibility of genetical-
ly engineered canola cross-pol-
linating with related vegetable
species has also cast a shadow
over the crop.
For now, Mallory-Smith
remains tight-lipped about the
results of her study, but the
controversy is likely to lare
up again when her report is re-
leased in late 2017.
But not all of her work takes
place in the spotlight.
A key part of Mallo-
ry-Smith’s job is evaluating
herbicides for safety and efi-
cacy in specialty crops that are
grown in the Northwest.
Chemical companies con-
duct such analysis for major
commodity crops, but it’s not
economically justiiable for
them to examine crops grown
on small acreage.
This story irst appeared
April 15, 2016.
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