Distorted crops - herbicides in horse manure

Money_maker

Come across two cases of this recently.

MIL used horse manure (from farm) in half her row of sweet peas. When plants were growing, the half in the manured patch were highly distorted - small stems and leaves. Spindly and undermatured. Those in the unmanured side were fully grown, leafy and healthy. The others looked so sick with little chance of flowers.

Said she had seen an article in garden news about the use of herbicides in horse feed which caused this sort of effect.

Fast forward a few weeks, my Dads tomato plants in his greenhouse are looking so wrong. Same plants as mine, but mine are 6' tall and full of leaves and fruit. His are about 18" tops, with tiny distorted leaves and a few flowers changing to the smallest toms you ever did see. Couldn't figure his problem to start with then the penny dropped. He had used 'pukka' horse manure, in sealed bags from a reputable company in that side of the greenhouse. Didn't realise that reputable companies would have them in their pre-bagged stuff.

Googled this and the internet is heaving with information on this type of problem and the particular herbicide in question.

Just wondering if anyone else has come across this or if this answers any questions for those who have used horse manure this year and encountered this problem.

Zazen999

No, it makes me glad that we just use home made compost and no manure at all.

I believe it is rinsed out of the soil in time; not sure how long though. The best thing to do is to remove as much of it as you can if you can [not good if you have dug it all in], and don't use that patch for a while. I remember somewhere reading that sowing a green manure might help to get it out of the system but i can't ay for sure whether that would work or not.

Who was the reputable company? I take it he has complained to them?

Money_maker

Not sure, one of the biggies, he still has an sealed bag left - will check later on this week. Problem is, this bag could be from a different stable?!
Think I will find out more and get in touch with the company.

Cant do anything for MIL - hers was off a local farm.

Looks like we'll have to remove the top couple of feet from the greenhouse later in the year. The results are so dramatic that there must be others here who have had something similar.

SKIPPY54

Hi,if you do a search in forums and put in the word AMINOPYRALID you should find your answer,it is a long lasting hebicide that is now banned, and rumour has it that it is going to be re licenced.there was alot about it on here last year.

grandmaster00

could say lots - yeh its a massive problem and one that needs lots more publicity.
read more on this website here - wont let me put a link so putt w w w . in front of this and copy and paste into your browsers address bar
glallotments.btik.com/p_Contaminated_Manure.ikml

plenty of info and links to other sources of info

yes its aminopyralid - a hormone based weedkiller for control of broad leaved weeds such as dock and thistle. a lot of money has been invested in this weedkiller and its manufacturers arent just going to withdraw it without a fight - although it is actually them who initially withdrew it from market it was never meant as a permanent measure in fact they are currently looking at trying to licence it for use on food crops which at the moment it isnt licenced for.

its quite scary and the sight of the plants affected is almost alien like !! some plants are more sensitive than others and the ones that it is commonly affecting are potatoes, tomatoes, legumes such as peas and beans , lettuces and carrots. it basically kills dicotyledon plants and not monocotyledon - so your sweetcorn and courgetts and brassicas wont be affected. read the above link for more info.

grandmaster00

oh yeh no it isnt washed out - it binds itself to part of the plant - originally announced by the manufacturers as the lignin of the hay but now they are saying it binds to the proteins i believe. if left as a pile of manure it can take 3-5 yrs to break down. if you plant anything in it then dont compost the dead plants afterwards as this continues the cycle. therefore green manure is a definate no no !!!
the only options so far seem to be 2 - firstly rotovate or dig in the manure thoroughly - and then do it again - and again and probably again and again - dig it in as much as possible over the next year and hopefully this will help to break down the manure as bacteria in the soil help tpo break it down.
another option could be mycoremediation - growing mushrooms in the affected manure...... just a theory of mine that could work - mushrooms have amazing properties for soil decontamination

read this for more info on that subject again put a www. in front

fungi.com/mycotech/mycova.html

Primrose

I've read about this on another gardening website. It seems to have been a big problem, and because I can't get genuine horse manure I tend to buy the composted bagged stuff which many garaden centres sell - i.e. 3 or 4 bags for £12. It's very worrying that there's no way of knowing whether the stuff is insecticide/herbicide free or not, and because I use it on my vegetable garden I've decided to avoid buying any for the next 12 months in the hope that by then all current stocks will have worked their way out of the system. I'm an enthusiastic home compost generator but sadly can never generate enough for my needs. If anybody on here discovers a name or brand of producer of this stuff which is contaminated, could they please post it here so that we can avoid it as I'm sure that some garden centres are probably still unaware of the problem.

RHYSDAD

Triclopyr is the other ingredient in it. It is a Dow Agrosciences product in the Agricultural market. Nasty old stuff really when it goes through an animal and out the other side still active. A good advert to drink organic milk and eat organic beef/lamb etc. It is a grassland product. I could name it but may be libelous (so i won't)

actually, what they hey, it's on first page of google:

http://www.dowagro.com/PublishedLiterature/dh_0052/0901b80380052fe6.pdf?filepath=usag/pdfs/noreg/010-50433.pdf&fromPage=GetDoc

http://www.farmway.co.uk/downloads/36_FarmwayGrasslandarticleMarch092.pdf

Have a looky see!!

grandmaster00

theres a few products out there that contain the culprit herbicide. the one we are concerned about that is the damaging chemical is aminopyralid it is sold under a number of different names by dow most commonly a product called forefront. naming the offending product is not in any way libellous as dow have admitted that it is the probable cause of some crop failures.

we need to make some noise about this as some people are obviously not reading their product labels correctly before spraying !!! the big problem is a lack of communication between levels of supply.

RHYSDAD

grandmaster00 wrote: »

theres a few products out there that contain the culprit herbicide. the one we are concerned about that is the damaging chemical is aminopyralid it is sold under a number of different names by dow most commonly a product called forefront. naming the offending product is not in any way libellous as dow have admitted that it is the probable cause of some crop failures.

we need to make some noise about this as some people are obviously not reading their product labels correctly before spraying !!! the big problem is a lack of communication between levels of supply.

Pharoah is the other product that was withdrawn (again a professional Agchem as opposed to a readily available amateur product).
A good advert to grow organically then really.
If you do want to spray though, i'll post on later which chemical does that same job as aminopyralid but doesn't stay active in the manure. I need to double check with a colleague first though.

RHYSDAD

http://www.dowagro.com/uk/grass_bites/faq/allotment.htm

http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/garden.asp?id=2480


some info for you all.....