We Are Bombarding America's Forests with Roundup – Mother Jones
motherjones.com"Scientists are wary of glyphosate."
Those the media call scientists, only label them so when it's convenient. "Scientists" are also wary of coffee, red meat -- etcetera.
Like coffee not all Roundup is the same, different brands can have different complexes of Glyphosate, different wetter agents and adjutants.
As best any organisational body that has any sort of authority can state in regard to glyphosate is may -- there are a number of wetter compounds that ARE. At least one type of wetter does not make news because how hysterical some people can be with similar compounds, sister or distant cousin to the offending compound, which is used in cosmetics. [It's apparently a big important industry that any half smart rag or news media isn't game enough to bite on those ever common compounds.]
No doubt the people at the national park do not want any minor grass fire to stuff up new sapling plantings as well as reduce the fuel load around the remaining trees. But bare ground is prone to erosion, so no doubt those in charge are hopefully managing that aspect as well.
I have friends in forestry in Northern California and they do not think this is necessary, they attribute this to the administration being paid off by Bayer.
Given how bad fires have been in recent years, management might be getting rather anxious - safe is better than sorry.
Not being in the USA I do not know is Bayer still holds a patent regarding Roundup sales in the USA as any meaningful patent regarding herbicide use as a weed killer - Monsanto's global patent finished back in 1999 - 2000. [1]
In the US there are patents [2] for other side properties Glyphosate might hold but frankly the product is IMO non competitive with other substances in use the same field. Of course any patent might be irrelevant - I do forget about US's import tariffs and the Chinese made roundup is probably prohibitively costly there.
I also note Bayer has pulled back from the residential market in 2023 [3] as a means to limit liability exposure - I would read anywhere the public could expected to have exposure.
Monsanto after the patent expired had simply planned expansion of production (large factory built in South America iirc) to be the main manufacturer, where it was not economical for smaller players to enter production. However like every commodity where someone has a monopoly, within a couple of years they tried to wring as much as they could from farmers, well from those in international markets like Australia at least. The excuse I heard given to farmers here was crude oil prices going up ... it didn't readily explain a tripling of cost though. The Chinese then began their own significant production effort and ever since Monsanto tried every trick in the legal book to see off competition here.
Keep in mind the three big global herbicide companies have already moved on (iirc around 2015 it fully matured) from round up ready seeds (they've set up a rather intertwined patents) to newfangled but of course expensive alternative herbicides that on reading require more effort and precision to achieve the end purpose.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
[2] https://nutritionrestored.com/2023/06/11/the-glyphosate-orig...
[3] https://www.consumernotice.org/environmental/pesticides/roun...