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Permalink Reply by Classic Gardens on July 13, 2008 at 11:03

Many of the busy lizzies for the last few years round our area inc council planting have all failed for no apparent reason and all sourced from different growers.

Could this be a possible reason?

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on July 13, 2008 at 11:13

Jeremy

Thank you for keeping this in the public eye.

A couple of threads where this has been mentioned on Landscape Juice and this network as well.

Really worrying for organic gardeners isn't it?

* Warning issued on the dangers of contaminated manure

* Weedkiller in manure damages food crops

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Dore on July 13, 2008 at 11:48

Philip,
Sorry - had missed that you'd alredy covered this. I think it does really call into question the whole organic standards area, since manure has long been a standard input to organic farming. That's why I'm very interested in the new Stockfree Organic certification which is organic but without any animal inputs (they use a clever system of green manures and composting to provide all the soil fertility requred and it has been proved to work for > 10 years now with improvements in soil condition)
Jeremy

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Permalink Reply by Nick Steele on July 13, 2008 at 21:04

My understanding is that although the current complaints all seem to relate to aminopyralid, there are maybe 10 other similar hormone type weedkillers, some of which are used in retail grass "weed and feed" products. Some of those are surely already in the municipal waste stream....

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Dore on July 13, 2008 at 21:59

Yes, I've since come across this article:
http://www.compost.org.uk/content/view/923/1
which also names clopyralid which is apparently in 43 UK herbicides.
The article concludes with: 'Each biowaste processor should, as far as practicable, check with each supplier of plant, manure or stable waste whether any product that contains clopyralid or aminopyralid has been applied to the material...Clearly this recommendation is not feasible for biowastes collected from households but local authorities can help to minimise risks by reminding householders to read herbicide product labels carefully before deciding whether to purchase a product, using it and deciding what to do with any garden plant wastes treated with the herbicide'

Yeah... like that's ever going to happen! Sounds like local authority recycling schemes are high risk for this kind of contamination.

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on August 2, 2008 at 8:35

The Pesticide Safety Directorate has suspended for sale the use of any product that has Aminopyralid as an active ingredient - source Landscape Juice.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Dore on August 2, 2008 at 8:50

The problem is still going to be around for a long time though, as supplies of manure which have aminopyralid continue to be available. More worrying is that ths suspension by the PSD was actually asked for by Dow Agrosciences as a temporary measure while they revise the usage advice, meaning that they are in control of when they reintroduce it to the market (perhaps when the media outcry has passed?)

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on August 2, 2008 at 8:55

"perhaps when the media outcry has passed?"

Judging by the feeling and anger on the gardening and vegetable growing blogs, I suspect that they will not get away with being unnoticed and I suspect that scrutiny will never be that far away.

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