Seeking to better understand herbicide resistance, researchers exposed more than 70 million grain amaranth seeds to a soil-based herbicide. Though preliminary, the findings suggest that the mutation rate in amaranth is very low, and that low-level herbicide application contributes little — if anything — to the onset of new mutations conferring resistance, say researchers at the University of Illinois.

A primary principle in no-till farming is that tillage dramatically disturbs the soil, decreasing water infiltration capacity and increasing the likelihood of erosion, and yet many farmers continue to use tillage to deal with weeds that would otherwise hamper crop production in their fields. A no-till system offers techniques for killing weeds which do not destroy the structure of the soil the way tillage does.