My allotment neighbour sprayed his weeds and the drift got on several of my squash plants. One plant had two good sized squash on it. The plant died very slowly but the actual squash remained unaffected in appearance. I expected them to rot but they didn't in fact they look perfect they just didn't increase in size any further than the point of being sprayed. I know some commercial potato growers desiccate the haulm with glyphosate prior to harvest so i was wondering if the squash are still safe to eat? Anybody know?
Seems strange that an absorbed killer like G can leave potatoes unharmed?
I only knew of sulphuric acid for that purpose.
So nobody knows the answer to my question? :'(
I wouldn't eat it, just in case.
If you want to read a little about reports of glyphosate poisoning, there are plenty on the net, this general report may be of some use:
http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/actives/glyphosa.htm
Modified to say that I know that glyphosate is used to kill off unwanted potatoes (volunteers) but have never heard of it being used to kill off foliage.
It's sulphuric acid that is used to kill off foliage.
I wouldn't eat your squash - the glycophosphate may have got inside it. Perhaps, if it is a round one, use it for Jack-o-lantern practice.
Give one of the two squashes to your allotment neighbour, if s/he is still alive next week eat the other squash yourself.
;D...What a good idea! My husband thought I should accidentally spray their stuff but they're not growing much. One of my other allotment neighbours thinks they sprayed their plot with something really nasty because they hardly have any of the weeds that the other two plots (mine) and another have which were cultivated from grassy field all at the same time. They could have easily pulled out the sowthistle that they sprayed there were only 10 and the glyphosate hasn't killed them. So i have lost my squash for nothing.
If they died slowly, it was probably a very low dose the plants got. Are you sure it's not natural die-back or mildew? 'tis the season...
The content of the link is interesting - I recently heard that we do have the same pathway that Glyphosphate interferes with, but it doesn't appear to be affected in animals. Strange. There are so many "modern" diseases and we just can't tell why we're iller than we used to be.
It's worth considering that you will almost certainly have less residue than on shop bought veg.
I thought it was used to make peas ready for harvest which is then used for cattle fodder. Maybe not.
Actually I spent 3 years doing research on a potato disease and we used land owned by commercial growers. We had to tell them not to use glyphosate on our crops in case it affected our experiment, as they were doing the routine farm management on our crops for us. That's why I know some commercial growers used it. It's like I also know a beansprout producer was using a weak solution of 24D to sprout his mung beans, quite legally at the time apparently but I prefer to sprout my own.
Actually the plant was sprayed in late june and died slowly. At the time of spraying it had two approx 1Kg sized squash they were my first big ones of the season so I was very cross. The plant died slowly, in fact as i have done research using weedkiller's I knew it had been sprayed before the weeds on my neighbours plot started to die so at first I wasn't sure where the spray drift had come from. This is because it kills faster growing plants quicker as the weedkiller is translocated through the plant faster, the weeds were two days behind. The squash plant didn't die completely but the squash didn't increase any further in size but the two squash fruits were right next to the first leaves to die. Anyway I don't think I want to feed them to my kids, i would really like to feed them to my allotment neighbour for his inconsiderate spraying. There is no sign of any damage on the outside. They will make unusual lanterns for halloween as they are dark green Kaboucha squash.