Tried some bean tests through the winter and they looked OK, heavily manured under the broad beans I planted out a few weeks ago, they are now showing that tell-tale feathery growth at the top (having put on several leaves and looking healthy)... At least I haven't pushed a load onto where the shelling beans will go and the rest of the heap can go under the sweetcorn and pumpkins...... but ....sigh..... I'll probably have to drop my supplier.... annoying cos my soil really does need the oomph, and because I've put so much in my plots already look way better than most on my site in terms of soil quality..... I'll have to get some council compost for the bean trenches, I've got precious little of my own anyway..... v. v. annoying....
I feel your pain - same thing has happened to me this year. First few sets of leaves on broadies in buckets seemed fine so I spread the stuff out. Then broadies start to look sick. But they were growing in 50% manure so hoping that the dilution on the plot will help.
Bum :(
There are still a few signs of it one our site. Some volunteer potatoes growing on a waste heap are showing signs. so compost made of contaminated plants are a problem.
I've got volunteers coming up cheerfully in last years potato patch too so I'm hoping that my beans will be OK there... potatoes had a slightly hard time of it but now I'm not sure if that was all down to aminopyralid, I suspect a component of it might have been not enough water when it was dry.... and it was a pretty dry if not exactly warm summer last year....
It's not a massive hassle, I've got tons of broad beans frozen already, the spuds coming through on the other manured bit look OK at the moment and I can avoid the rest of it going to my shelling beans with a bit of effort.... I guess I can also decant all the weed-based compost I made last year from their dumper bags and use that too... hopefully it will be ready and not too full of still-alive weeds.....
Oh no thats rubbish. If only the contaminate was brightly coloured so we could see where it is and its extent.
I had a few tomatoes do the same from a single bag of compost. Its definitely still out there.
Hope the spuds are fine afterall.
x sunloving
Quote from: Digeroo on May 09, 2012, 22:30:29
There are still a few signs of it one our site. Some volunteer potatoes growing on a waste heap are showing signs. so compost made of contaminated plants are a problem.
That might be becasue the spuds picked it up last year and are still being affected, but I take your point... I'll talk to my suppliers but I doubt they'll want government agri-scientists crawling all over the place (it's possible seeing as they rent the land that they won't be allowed to even if they wanted) ..... It's some dairy or beef farmer lying to an hay-agent....
My plot neighbour used his compost for his beans last year and the effect was devastating. The effects of AP seem to me to be more of a problem in dry weather. It was almost as if the compost had concentrated the problem.
The problem is just how long the stuff lasts. The potatoes showing problems here had manure applied more than two years ago.
The volunteers in the soil are ok it is the ones on a compost heat that have issues.
Also if it can be absorbed by non affected plants then it can come round in contaminated feed stuffs.
I do not think we have heard the last of AP by a very long way.