Topic: Aminopyralid and brassicas

[Digeroo]

Having a bit of a run in with contaminated manure again.  Can not find anything about the effect on brassicas.  Can anyone tell me if they are affected.

The great website Muck in the Muck which listed the susceptible plants has disappeared iunfortunately.

Only had a problem with beans last year but this year seems to be affecting the courgettes.  Though they seem to recover very quickly when moved.  I have found a new test which is quicker than beans, fat hen is affected and so this is a much cheaper and quicker test though is not as good as the broad beans at very low concentrations.

Lots of people have had a major problem with potatoes.

I have also noticed that there is a very minor anount of effect on sone broad beans whihc have not had manure though the land has been thoroughly peed on by pigs.  Looks like it is getting into the feed stuffs in general.

[froglets]

Hi,

We found that brassicas grew inordinately well in contaminated ground.  We'd eaten a few thinking we'd cracked prizewinning cabbage growing before we knew the ground was contaminated.

Our potato crop was poor but we got some.

So far, in the third season, the tilling and fluffing up of the ground to expose as much as poss to air seems to work and the potatos we have in what was a contaminated bed are now growing cleanly and strong.

Sorry to hear you're still suffering.

[Digeroo]

It was my own fault I should have been more careful, much of it came with my started manure pile on my new piece of allotment.  I have planted a load of sweet corn but bow much do you want.  So  have been planting out some brassicas.  

Not totally happy about having the stuff in my brassicas but not sure what else to do.

Many thanks for your response.

I have found one other benefit there is no bindweed coming up in the contaminated areas from last year. 

[moonbells]

The great website Muck in the Muck which listed the susceptible plants has disappeared iunfortunately.

Have you tried putting its address into http://www.archive.org/web/web.php (The wayback machine)?

It is an archive of old webpages. Good way to find stuff which is no longer live.

moonbells

[sunloving]

Hi
Sorry to hear that youve been having problems
I had a bad dose about three years ago now. I found Sue Garrents websites very useful heres the link.

I would just bear in mind that this herbicide persists in the plant matter and so will be in the crops you grow in it - for example potaoes harvested on contaminated ground grow into deformed plants the next season becuase they contain sufficent herbicide to deform them even 6 months later. I chucked away everything that grew even where we got tomatoes to grow to maturity.

Try this website for lots of other info.

http://glallotments.co.uk/ACManure.aspx
x sunloving

[redimp]

Some of my potatoes look like they are contaminated but they are in ground that has never been near any contaminated manure and the manure they had with them is supposed to be very clean.

[realfood]

Brassicas do indeed seem unaffected by aminopyralid. Does this mean that they do not take up the weedkiller?
Sweetcorn, being a grass, probably takes up aminopyralid and stores it in the fibres, but is not adversely affected.

[realfood]

My potato bed was affected last year and I was concerned about conserving my own heritage seed potatoes.
I am pleased to say that my saved potato seed has not been affected this year and is growing normally.

[Tee Gee]

As many of you will know I have been affected 'big time' this year.

I went down the plots this morning and surveyed the site to find how many people have been affected and there is at least seven. Which is not surprising when you consider we had sixteen loads of the stuff delivered last october.

I know this because I took on the responsibilty of organising the deliveries.

I had a word with the farmer I sourced the 'muck' from and he did admit he had sprayed his hay fields (silage) but with what he couldn't tell me at the time but I got the impression that he had used a 'safe' material if there is such a thing.

I contacted him again last night to see if I could get any further information from him.

I mentioned the loss of my potatoes to him and he says his are OK. He spread his muck in February and planted out later.

This concurs with the general advice we get from the 'experts' ::) about not mucking and planting at more or less the same time.

It also fits in with my experience as the stock (including potatoes) that is in the beds that I prepared last October appears to be OK but the stock that is in beds that were prepared in April/May don't seem to be.

Add to this I never prepare my tunnel & greenhouse beds till spring simply to do so would mean the 'muck' would dry up and be virtually useless in regards to moisture retention.

Guess what! Yes!! the beans,tomatoes and Peppers in the tunnel have succumbed to the disease. The stuff in my other greenhouse are not showing signs of anything at the moment but only time will tell.

On speaking with the farmer further I have found another piece of information.

The RHS have told me that the following brands of weedkiller that Dow Agrosciences' produce and subsequently been banned are Forefront, Pharoah & Banish.

This year the  farmer went to get his favourite weedkiller only to find that it is not marketed any more so it would appear the ban has worked good you might say!

But wait for it;..........Dow Agrosciences have a new product on the market namely 'Pastor' which when you read the small print (through a magnifying glass) yes it is basically the same product/formula being sold under a different name but they have covered themselves in the small print this time! >:(

So nothing new there then! Some of you may recall I had a similar experience with Armillatox when it was reclassified I always used it as a 'fungicide' then because of the Euro zone licenses being so expensive the re-classified it as a 'cleaner'.

When I approached 'Monsanto' as to what the difference was they told me it was the same folmula as before, suggesting that I could use it for all the protection I used before the re-classification.

So again; not quite the same as the weedkiller but another  product going under a new name.

John Miller has sent me an article from Canada giving an extensive overview on Aminopyralid and why it is banned in Canada. Thanks John I hope to get round to reading it once I have finished this article.

What I have been unable to establish as yet, although I might find this when I read the Canadian literature is; If the affected does produce the edible part we grow it for will it be fit for consumption.

I have written again to the RHS to clarify this point!

I am going to Gardeners World Live tomorrow so I hope to have a talk 'face to face' with RHS/NVS/NSALG and any other such group that might listen to me and see what their take is on the subject.

As you might have guessed I am quite incensed about all this and the way gardeners are being treated these days.

For example 'Compost Quality'

As a gardener of forty years plus I have never seen so much crap about and selling at grossly inflated prices to boot >:(

This reduction in peat use is comendable on the one hand but hey! please let us know what you are fobbing us off with in its place.

I bought 6 bags of 'Growell Potting compost this year and on first impressions it is a lovely dark even textured material untill you wet it!

I have literally lost hundreds of plants this year and the remainder are of very poor quality.

When you remove the plant from the pot/cell you expect to see a lovely rootball..........NO!! not in this case; what you find is that the compost or should I say sludge (reminiscent of wet coal dust) falls off the spindly root system to leave a very poorly plant.

So again we are being conned into buying stuff that appears to have no British standard or quality control.

Then don't get me on to the loss of seeds in a packet or the demise of some chemicals which I saw as 'plant medicine' where in most cases I applied them when the plant was poorly.

Unlike the commercial people who seemed to use it willy nilly resulting in the banning of some very good safe products that provided you treated them with the respect they deserved.

In other words I treated my plants like any doctor would treat me, i.e. he/she gave me medicines at a dosage suited to my ailment.

Now my plants cant have any of these 'controlled' substances but companies like DOw can put them into a situation where I have no control.

I think I'll form a new protest group and name it; 'T'GGRO'! The Great Gardener rip off.

I think I had better close there before my blood pressure rises any higher!

Sorry for the rant but thats just how I feel today so please excuse my intolerance! Tg

[realfood]

Information from my web page :- The Health and Safety executive have confirmed that vegetables that have been grown in ground contaminated with aminopyralid, are safe to eat. See their update information at http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/garden.asp?id=2480

Many growers, to be on the safe side, may choose to avoid eating vegetables grown in ground contaminated with aminopyralid.

Interestingly, Dow themselves so do not eat affected vegetables.

[realfood]

Tee Gee, to help your blood pressure, do what I did last year and write to your  MP!!
 Mine turned out to be a government minister at the time and did pursue the matter on my behalf. I was trying to get the temporary ban on the use of aminopyralid, continued but as you know this was not successful. Dow is very powerful, but the more letters that the Minister has to answer, the more trouble it causes to the agricultural lobby.

[Digeroo]

I am sorry that you are having a problem TeeGee you are normally so proud of your gardening.  It is so frustrating to see everything growing into misshapen miserable specimens.  My best advice at the moment is to try and water with lime free water.   I had some plants grow through the problem last year but this year cannot reproduce the effect.  I have been watering copiously and this is proving totally disasterous.   Which is why I am beginning to suspect that lime adds to the effect.  I also have broad beans which started showing problems when they were more than 4 ft tall.  I am sure by that time their roots must have been in the manure for some considerable time.  It was only when I watered them that the problems started.  

I have started to plant things up the paths between the rows.

I wrote to my MP about it and a lot of good it did - not. >:(

I now have lots and lots of sweet corn and brassicas but rather wary about the prospect of eating them, though realise that I have no idea if it is in supermarket cabbages.

[Digeroo]

The reintroduction of Aminopyralid was supposed to have considerable stewardship regulations attached.  I understood that users were going to be expected to sign some kind of agreement which stated that they had read and inwardly digested the restrictions for use of the product including preventing the escape of any manure.  I will look back over the posts last year and find the references to the body which recommended the reintroduction of the product.  I feel that we need to notify them of every incident of transgressions to the stewardship.  Unfortuneately they never published the exact terms of this stewardship. 

It is still worth growing beans on manure to check but as I have said I have incidents where the beans get to some considerable size before showing symptoms.  Do you have alkaline soil /water TeeGee?

[realfood]

Digeroo, I think that the reason that your broad beans were 4 ft tall before becoming afflicted when you watered them, is due to it being only then that the conditions were right to maximise the breakdown of the grass fibers in the manure. See my previous explanation of the process involved.

"The rate that it affects plants probably  depends on how suitable the soil conditions are for the breakdown of the grass fibers by the soil bacteria. For instance in dry conditions like this year, it will take longer for the bacteria to get to work. Warmth and moisture will hasten the process.
The reason why some of the first leaves of affected plants look normal, is that the aminopyralid has not been released as it is still locked up in the grass fibres. As the soil bacteria get to work on the contaminated manure and breaks down the remains of the grass fibers, aminopyralid is released to do the damage to potatoes, peas, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, rasps in particular."

[realfood]

Some of the general details of the stewardship requirements are here http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2010/04/21/120885/Comeback-for-aminopyralid-herbicides.htm and here http://www.dowagro.com/uk/aminopyralidsuspension.htm

[Digeroo]

It may have been too cold the BB were sown in February,  But we are having all sorts of interesting effects.  Allotments which shared piles of manure one which is devasted and the next hardly affected.  Crops with problems which have not been manured this year and which grew sensitive crops last year.

In many ways the manure was the same as last year and then there were only a few pockets of problem.   Why is the devastation so widespread this year.   My first idea was the the weather was a contributary factor it has been much hotter and very very dry so I felt that perhaps there was not enough moisture allow the bacteria to breakdown the Aminopryalid.  But this did not fit the facts because all the allotments have had the same weather.  Though those at one end of the site are damper these certainly are showing less problem.  But we have one strip which goes, very bad, no problem, very very bad, a bit of a problem, a little, none, bad, little, bad,  Last uear there were a few potato plants here and there with a few leaves with a bit of a problem and this soon grew out and most people did not even notice that they had been contaminated, this year only a few people have escaped major destruction to their potato crops.  

Looks like your manure supplier did not do things right,  it would be interesting to find out where he got the bottle, but I expect he will suddenly suffer from major amnesia, especially now the label has fallen off the bottle.  But the fact this has occurred goes to prove that the stewardship will not work,  People simply do not read the instructions.

[colt]

In my opinion for what its worth is this. If a farmer uses the weedkiller on his fields then he must inform whoever he sells the hay,silage to that he's sprayed and that no manure from the animals can be sold or given away. This way it can be traced back to whoever sold the stuff and a very large fine imposed. So if i bought from a local farmer and the manure is contaminated he must prove that he bought in feed/bedding without being told that the fields have been sprayed this way there is a link.

I hope the above makes sense

[Eristic]

Dear oh dear oh dear.

How many times have I banged on about the need to test every batch of manure brought onto your sites? Quite frankly I get a bit tired of constantly reading about all your self inflicted ails when you totally ignore all good advice.

I devised a simple but efficient test which I published in this forum while Dow, the perpetrators of this mess was still denying that their product could be at fault. 2 years later they adopted it as their own method of testing. The test works so why do you all continue to ignore the problem. This poison manure is not going to simply go away, it is going to get far worse.

Therefore, I will say this one last time:

It is your duty and your responsibility to test each and every load of manure or manure enhanced compost  prior to deployment.

Test it. Test it and test it again.

One last point: Do not waste time asking farmers if they have broken the law. It will come as a big surprise to many of you here but the farmer will lie. The onus is on you to assume the manure is toxic until you have proved it to be otherwise.

[grannyjanny]

I've just read the link put up by realfood & it says that the aminopyralid can only be used on grazing pasture for sheep & cattle not when the pasture is for silage or hay. If the sheep & cattle eat the from that field surely there is every chance of their pooh being contaminated & therefore getting into the manure, or am I talking rubbish?

[redimp]

Dear oh dear oh dear.

How many times have I banged on about the need to test every batch of manure brought onto your sites? Quite frankly I get a bit tired of constantly reading about all your self inflicted ails when you totally ignore all good advice.

I devised a simple but efficient test which I published in this forum while Dow, the perpetrators of this mess was still denying that their product could be at fault. 2 years later they adopted it as their own method of testing. The test works so why do you all continue to ignore the problem. This poison manure is not going to simply go away, it is going to get far worse.

Therefore, I will say this one last time:

It is your duty and your responsibility to test each and every load of manure or manure enhanced compost  prior to deployment.

Test it. Test it and test it again.

One last point: Do not waste time asking farmers if they have broken the law. It will come as a big surprise to many of you here but the farmer will lie. The onus is on you to assume the manure is toxic until you have proved it to be otherwise.

Possibly because your aggressive and sanctimonious attitude in every post you make means that people can't be bothered to read it.