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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] herbicide residues?

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  • From: "Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] herbicide residues?
  • Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:32:11 -0500

Donna wrote:

"It's like picking up bags of grass clippings. If the lawn doesn't have
weeds in it, I skip it. I've seen tomato plants wilt within 2 hours when
herbicide contaminated grass clippings were spread around them."

Donna,

This hasn't been my experience. For the last few years I've picked up
truckload after truckload of grass clippings and put them in the garden,
around the brambles, trees, everywhere. Many times throughout the summer,
I've picked up two to three mounded up truckloads per week to try to keep
everything mulched. I also have a sign up asking for grass clippings, and
people drop them off. Nearly all these clippings are from finely manucured,
weed free lawns (the folks that want weed free, picture perfect lawns are
about the only ones who bag their lawns around here). I've no doubt the
lawns are drenched in herbicides. How do my trees/plants respond? Not
unusual to get 5 feet of growth on peach trees. Tomatoes are so tall they
grow up over the top of 5' cages, grow all the way to the ground, then try
to grow back up. The growth is so excessive, it causes problems by shading
the lower parts and increasing fungal problems. I have had my soil tested a
couple times, and applied fertilzer to balance it, so that may help too.
I've also cooked a few plants, and the bark on a couple trees with hot grass
clippings. I now try not to get it right up next to the plant. Most
herbicides on lawns have a fairly short half-life.

Even picloram (Tordon) doesn't stay around forever. I used to use it to
spot spray thistles on the farm. I once sprayed some thistles in a field
that was getting ready to go into beans. After the beans were drilled,
everywhere I sprayed a thistle, there was a small patch where the beans did
not germinate. The field was on a two crop corn/bean rotation, and except
for that first season, there was no discernable difference where I sprayed
the thistles. The advantage of Tordon was that because it is somewhat
persistent, it would kill the seeds of the thistles, if sprayed on the
heads, whereas a product like Crossbow required more repeated spraying year
after year, requiring much more chemical.

Mark
KS
----- Original Message -----
From: Kieran &/or Donna
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] herbicide residues?


I've been wondering who to ask about this. We got a nice load of horse
manure this spring and I made sure to give the peppers plenty of it. When
the pepper plants began growing twisty and stunted, I looked for more on the
herbicide that devastated gardens across Britain a couple years back. The
stuff is being sprayed on pastures and hayfields to control broad leaved
weeds like thistles. Turns out that the plants most bothered by it are:
Potatoes, manure applied, plants were fine
Tomatoes, used very little on them, plants fine
Peas, no manure used
Beans, ditto
Carrots, we don't grow
Lettuce planted well before we got the stuff
There are some photos of affected potato plants here, look like our peppers
but different.
http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/261/contaminated-manure-aminopyralid-update/
The trouble is that we have had so much trouble with boron deficiency that
this could simply be more of the same. To complicate things, the bedding
was wood chips that appeared to be painted. My son says this is from a
sawmill that applied primer before cutting the wood to length. He said it
was nothing to worry about, probably just titanium but that it might raise
the pH. Great, that's all we need to make boron less available. The
potatoes were grown on soil that probably has a lower pH. Plus, part of
boron deficiency is that B is used to transport Calcium, so it looks like
calcium deficiency, and if the pH has been raised by something other than
Ca, then Ca might become less available.
Anyway, has anyone had any trouble with this herbicide in manure or
compost applied to gardens? I decided this was the final reason to get some
fainting goats to control brush plus supply safe manure. I went to to farm
supply stores looking for hay, and both places told me there was not weed
one in their hay. I looked, it was pure grass. Around here, the usual
hayfield has lots of broad leaved plants in it. So I figured the stuff was
sprayed. Fortunately a client volunteered to bring some hay with weeds in
it. It's like picking up bags of grass clippings. If the lawn doesn't have
weeds in it, I skip it. I've seen tomato plants wilt within 2 hours when
herbicide contaminated grass clippings were spread around them. Donna



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