Dow herbicide Grazon's side effects in manure on tomatoes

[nr]

Our son who is into vegetable growing emailed this sad tale:
"One of the guys here is big into tomato farming- grows the tall >20' plants
shown in the book you saw a couple visits ago. This year he has had a
bunch of plants fail. It turns out that the farm where he gets the
compost had been sprayed with Grazon (sp?), a Dow product. Apparently
this is great stuff for broadleaf weed control. However, the downside is
that this herbicide can stick around for 9 months to a year, even after the
weeds are eaten and passed by the cow. He was told that the best thing to
do would be to dig up the top 6" of dirt in the garden and get rid of it.
Now he's trying to get rid of not only the dirt but the load of compost as
well.

We were joking that its a crazy thing that you now need to develop a
purchase specification for cow manure..."

 

[Turkey Track Bar]

Our son who is into vegetable growing emailed this sad tale:
"One of the guys here is big into tomato farming- grows the tall >20' plants
shown in the book you saw a couple visits ago. This year he has had a
bunch of plants fail. It turns out that the farm where he gets the
compost had been sprayed with Grazon (sp?), a Dow product. Apparently
this is great stuff for broadleaf weed control. However, the downside is
that this herbicide can stick around for 9 months to a year, even after the
weeds are eaten and passed by the cow. He was told that the best thing to
do would be to dig up the top 6" of dirt in the garden and get rid of it.
Now he's trying to get rid of not only the dirt but the load of compost as
well.

We were joking that its a crazy thing that you now need to develop a
purchase specification for cow manure..."

nr...

Very interesting. I'm sorry to hear about your son's friends tomatoes

Here's what Dow says on their website:

http://www.dowagro.com/range/products/faq.htm#faq4

Do I have to keep my livestock out of the treated area for a specific time period?


For most livestock species - beef cattle, sheep, horses and goats - our Range & Pasture products carry no grazing restrictions, even during or immediately after application. However, there are grazing restrictions for lactating dairy animals. For lactating dairy cows, allow seven days before grazing pasture treated with Grazon P+D and 14 days after applying Tordon 22K. Picloram is rapidly excreted in unchanged form by the animal via urine. Delay transferring livestock from treated areas onto land seeded with a desirable broadleaf crop for seven days. Urine and manure may otherwise injure sensitive broadleaf plants. Meat animals grazing for up to two weeks after treatment should be removed from the treated areas three days prior to slaughter. Consult individual product specimen labels for specific grazing and haying restrictions prior to application.

So, according to this, the residue must last in the urine for 7 days...apparently the purveyor of the manure/compost didn't READ THE LABEL!!! As well the label (linked below) says not to use manure from livestock grazing on treated forage to grow broadleafs, ornamentals, etc. (from page 3, bottom of column 1)

You sons friend could have a legal claim...not that I'm a "sueing" person, but I do hope at the very least he makes this known to the person he acquired the manure/compost from!!!

http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld0B1000.pdf

Cheers---

TTB :wink:

 

[nr]

Thank you TurkeyTrackBar. I forwarded your response to him.

Usually folks don't use fresh manure on veg., supposed to let it age
and cool down etc. It would be interesting to know if that chemical doesn't even break down in a year's time... :roll:

 

[baling wire]

A few years ago I sprayed a pivit corner of grass with Curtail and grazed it along with the pivit of corn stalks. The next year I had alot of two foot circles of nothing in the beans.This was grazed five months after application.

 

[Jinglebob]

Again it proves, "it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature"! :wink: