Aminopyralids or similar...

thriftwizard

I've been blaming the dreadful performance of my runner beans & squash plants on an inadvertent wood chip mulch (was meant to be on the paths, not the beds, but promised help with lifting paving slabs didn't happen) but have just realised that that bed - and my poor sad currant bushes - had been heavily fed or mulched with horse manure from one of our local stables. Looking at the damaged plants, they have all the signs of aminopyralid (or similar) damage. I will be leaving that bed fallow for at least a year (against our plot site rules!) & turning it regularly but what the heck should I do with the bags of manure I haven't yet used? Our council seem utterly baffled...

thriftwizard

PS - now being told I'll have to pay for commercial disposal... this is NOT ON!

Farway

I had to search for aminopyralid, however one of the results turned up article but UK Gov HSE, and on same page Q11 & Q12 it says what to do, and one good bit, from Q11 which I've cut & pasted which may help others is [my bold]

Dow AgroSciences has set up an advisory website for allotment holders and gardeners to provide advice on the use or disposal of existing manure that may contain aminopyralid and will provide a 'Bioassay' (testing kit) to allow growers to check their manure. If the manure is found to contain residues of aminopyralid Dow AgroSciences will arrange for the manure to be removed.

Best of luck with this

thriftwizard

Thanks, @Farway - off to find out more!

Woolsery

Just a mention for the other side of the coin, which is that aminopyralid weedkillers have allowed me to turn a useless field of dock, thistle and ragwort into a half-decent wildflower meadow without harming the diversity of native grasses. I'm just one guy with a backpack sprayer and I used a lot of weedkiller initially, but it was targeted and within a few years the amount was scaled back. Nowadays, a litre of Grazon lasts about 4 or 5 years, and considering 5 acres is managed, that's tiny compared with wholesale spraying from an ATV.

The muck on my fields comes from sheep and it stays there, so there's no problem. I get my garden muck from horses next door and the lady who manages them doesn't use weedkillers, so that's fine. It's very naughty of those selling or even giving away manure that could be contaminated and you've every right to be angry. Personally, I'd take it back and leave it with them, maybe in the middle of their drive!

RAS

When this was a major problem on our allotments, one of the plot holders who'd bought from the same supplier "got away with it."

Before anyone knew anything, she'd spread the entire load as a thin layer all over the plot. And shallow dug over the plot, incorporating the manure. Then when the weeds started showing dug over again.

And as she'd started planting in April, she dug over the ground again, left it a week or so and planted. Other plots were devastated and I was so glad I'd missed a booking. By comparison her plot was fine except a few potatoes in the corner where the muck heap had been. Between frost, microbial action and weathering the effect had been reduced.

But I always check whether it has been used on field or been fed to livestock grazing before I  buy muck.

Woolsery

RAS said:

 Between frost, microbial action and weathering the effect had been reduced.

But I always check whether it has been used on field or been fed to livestock grazing before I  buy muck.

In case the point in my first post is missed, there's a hell of a difference between 'use' by a person with a back pack sprayer targeting individual weeds and someone spraying wholesale over the field with an ATV.

Our hay was baled last weekend and my last use of  the weedkiller was in early May, when less than 1% of the surface area would have had contact with the product, most of it hitting the target species. If that hay is eaten by my farmer friend's cattle or my neighbour's horses, I'd have no hesitation in using the resultant manure. My farmer friend's wife, who grows tomatoes, would soon kick-off if there was a problem, but there's been none.

Looking at his fields, I don't think weed control has been part of that farmer's regime for some time. Unlike me, he has no spraying certificate and has to call in a specialist with an ATV, which is costly as well as indescriminate.

thriftwizard

An update: the poor sad little beans & squash plants are soldiering on, and starting to look a little healthier. In the meantime, these are the beans that have regrown from last year's roots, with their poor sad little cousins visible behind; we will have at least some beans after all!