Long-term herbicides are poisoning the entire composting stream.
Lyn Brookes writes:
We have discovered the effects of aminopyralid in municipal compost in Ireland. These are the places where people take their garden waste to be composted and then you can buy the resultant compost, which is a great idea and a renewable resource. They depend on grass clippings for the process, which we now think are responsible for contaminating this compost. A friend spread it round her garden and potted plants with it and the results are terrible, fern like foliage on tomatoes and legumes, and it has even affected a hydrangea. Commercial growers who use manure and municipal compost could find they lose all their crops. This has far reaching implications that we are starting to see. I believe that it is even finding its way into peat free growing mediums.
This is your regular reminder not to trust anything that has come in contact with Big Ag.
You cannot trust manure, straw, hay, mushroom compost, municipal compost, bulk potting soil or bagged manure.
The sellers of Black Kow bagged manure also have an idiotic canned response for people that write with concerns about possible contamination. It includes this ridiculous claim:
There are more concerns today about herbicides sprayed on pastures getting in Black Kow and then damaging plants. The herbicides creating most concern are (chloryralid or aminopyralids). These herbicides were mainly used on lawns on the west coast. So the residues have usually been found in yard waste composts. The residue from the herbicide will dissipate if it is aerobically composted over a period of time. We compost our products for 10 to 12 weeks. Then the compost is cured for an additional 6 to 8 months.
What a surprise. A company that sells bullshit responds with the same. Lawn waste on the West Coast didn’t kill my gardens back in 2012.
This is the real story in a nutshell:
Hayfields all over Florida are sprayed with Aminopyralid and similar toxins to control broadleaf weeds such as spiny pigweed and wild blackberries.
This hay is then sold.
Animals that eat this hay pass through the toxins in their manure.
That manure can then be composted for months and months without the toxin breaking down.
Whatever compost is made or garden is fertilizer with this manure will see the effects of the toxin. It is very hard to break down and lasts for as long as a few years.
If you compost Graon-contaminated hay, it will also kill your garden. It will kill your garden as mulch, as well.
If there is sprayed hay – or manure from animals that have eaten the sprayed hay – getting into to your composting program, you are in trouble.
This is toxic trash and should be illegal. Period. There is no good way to manage this product. Time and time again it has damaged the gardens downstream from its use.
Grazon delenda est!
David The Good
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