ALL GARDENERS PLEASE BEWARE!
There is a danger lurking in unsuspecting places. I am not hyping, but warning all my gardening friends who may unwittingly or unknowingly kill their plants by using manure or hay contaminated with Dow Agrosciences “Grazon” or similar Aminopyralid herbicide.
Here is my update on my 2019 vegetable garden and the toll this herbicide is wreaking upon my plants. I purchased Coastal Bermuda Hay from Gulf Coast Equine and Pet in Friendswood, TX in the spring of 2019 for use a garden mulch. It swiftly stunted and poisoned my plants, limiting my yield dramatically and contaminating my soil for an uncertain time. I have been doing some research and this video explains my grim discoveries about this contaminant.
PLEASE DO NOT THINK IT CAN’T HAPPEN TO YOU.
This herbicide comes into our gardens in the form of fertilizer manure, bagged manure, humus, and bales of hay. These are very common gardening amendments often purchased in our neighborhoods, feed stores and home improvement centers.
This persistent aminopyralid herbicide does not quickly dissipate or break down after use by farmers and agricultural interests when they spray for broadleaf weeds in hay fields. Instead, it persists even through bovine and equine digestive tracts, on through manure, through the composting process, and eventually ends up in YOUR GARDEN, like it did mine and countless others, only to kill our plants.
Though it is claimed by many larger interests, universities, and agricultural extension offices to be harmless after a brief period of time, this is not true. It is deadly to plants for several years in some cases, and costs home gardeners a year or more in plant production.
The continued use of this herbicide without careful disclosure to all consumers downstream is not only dangerous, but irresponsible business. Re-selling hays and manure contaminated with this herbicide is unethical, resulting in loss of investment and monetary interests. This is negligence at best, criminal at worst, and has unintended consequences far downstream. This is a terrible blight upon gardening and any farming operation unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast radius of this poisonous product.
Please share this video. This information needs to be spread.
More info:
David the Good’s discussion on this plague. This is a must-watch discussion:
https://www.the-compost-gardener.com/picloram.html
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/aminopyralid/Aminopyralid_pdf.pdf
https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/pest-control/herbicide-damage-zmgz13fmzsto
https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/dear-mother-february-march-2013-zm0z13fmzhir
http://mainstusa.blogspot.com/2008/06/beware-dow-chemical-herbicide.html
___
Support my channel and get 10% off of your order at https://ivorganics.com/ , use my promo code: GUMBO10
Support my channel by shopping at Seeds for Generations:
Black Gumbo shares our suburban, backyard, sustainable gardening efforts. We work a small-scale, typical Zone 9a garden and raised beds, the kind of gardening accessible to all. We tend to take the slice of life approach and hope you will enjoy our family, our dog, our cooking, our adventures, and occasionally some commentary and advice. We love family, joy and friendship, and we invite you to enjoy these things with us!
Follow us on Instagram;
https://www.instagram.com/blackgumbosoutherngardening/
We’d be so grateful if you would like and share our videos if you find them useful. It helps us immensely.
34 Comments
I've been composting my horse manure. This explains when my garden has been so pathetic. Does anyone know if worm castings are okay of the worms have been fed tainted horse manure??
This is a major issue that is being ignored. My large raised beds havent produced in several years. I can't trust my compost or local compost and certainly not store bought compost. For the first 6 years I had amazing harvests of anything I planted. Now I have corn. That is all. And I still plant tomatoes and other broadleafs to test, and nothing produces anymore. I would have my raised beds refilled with clean soil but who can you trust for that? This is consequential to the food supply. No one is listening.
Have you contacted your state agricultural department? The EPA? They need to hear from us. The same thing has happened to me. So sorry.
You should have used wheat straw for mulch.
I never have had any problems with this in my garden! I use my own manure and hay and mostly i depend on the man made chemicals for fertilizer i like the manmade fertilizers made with the elements only listed on the atomic chart, you know thats the naturals that God put here on earth for our use!
You could write a letter to your senators asking them to pass laws to stop herbicide use! That would eliminate many of our problems in the big cities!
I believe in areas like Japan & Russia where they have had serious contamination, the ppl planted crops of sunflowers, as they are known to draw out poisons in the soil.
Most organic way to garden now is to use chemical urea to grow your own cover crops. Use urea to breakdown wood chips for extra organic matter and nutrients. All compost is tainted to some degree.
CAUTION communal composting also carries this danger, many people use weed killers. I have found this out the hard way on many occasions, for example our local dump provides free compost yet many people who contribute do actually use weedkillers in their gardens. Also i have always asked my Neighbors gardener to leave me his grass cuttings which i put around my raspberries however this killed most of the fruit last year and the rest did not taste good.
I am now writing to them to tell them i am no longer interested, i also have a small communal compost in my garden but not i realise i will have to put up a sign politely asking people not to leave any organic waste if they use weedkillers.
Use alfalfa hay to be sure there is no grazon on it.
From the fine folks that gave us Napalm.
This crap is also in bags of mulch sold at big box stores. Some of the bags are labeled with having weed killers in them, however, I bought a bag of regular mulch and apparently it got into my bag. It took years for me to grow anything in that spot. I removed the soil, but it still took years for things to grow. I now only buy mulch from a local wood mill.
What do you expect from Dow?
I lost an entire cannabis garden to this back in 2020 using straw from The Grange for mulch. Literally a 200k loss.
Thanks for getting this information out there. I'm a subscriber of your channel also David the good and Danny of old south homestead. All three of you have been preaching this same message. I know others are doing the same. It's criminal what Big Agr is doing to our food supply. Keep putting out the word. Better days ahead, I hope.
Yep, I quit using hay and straw in my garden. I use shredded leaves I get from yard crews for free.
Another YouTuber, “Deep South Homestead” had his garden destroyed by Grazon. He used manure which had eaten Grazon tainted hay. This stuff is evil. I’m just a backyard gardener, but now I’m afraid to even buy a bag of manure or compost.
I really feel for you. As a fellow gardener, it resonates. I'm also angry because of the whole situation with chemical-agribusiness. Best wishes to you, and thanks for sharing.
This is so true. It is so sad that farmers know that a product will impact home gardeners negatively and yet they still sell it to you because they want the money. I thought I was experiencing leaf curl. First on my peppers, then on my squash, then on my tomatoes! I began to think something is wrong. Then I made the connect with Black Kow or Black Velvet. My beds that dont have it are just fine. The plants start out okay and then they begin to deform. I will also stop purchasing manure from big box stores and try to make enough compost to top off the beds. I would prefer seeded hay over Grazon hay any day!! But Ive switched over to pine bark for mulch
It does not break down. Third year and still I see damaged plants!
It takes manure out of the equation in fertilizing a garden. You have to buy fertilizers which are in short supply.
I have a delivery of manure I was letting rot down. Now I’m informed thank you to all great Utube channels informing us ! God Bless!
two years ago grazon destroyed my raised bed garden. Grew sunflowers and corn and amened soil with biochar. Planted 4 tommato plants, flowering so far so good.
Thanks does Alfalfa pellets take up and store amino pyureolids and is persistent?
WHY? Are ALL FOOD SOURCES BEING DESTROYED ( or made illegal?) BY AGENCIES OF THE ELITE and THIER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND SCIENTISTS?
We have to understand that chemical companies own the regulative agencies. They captured the epa years ago. And the Universities get grants and hear no evil speak no evil, see no evil. Or they lose money.
Nobody in government, academics or industry cares about our gardens.
My tomatoes look exactly like yours.
I got goat manure and stall rakings with hay and wood chips from a neighbor who raises goats.
Its all about the dollar, by-passess common sence and safety.
So sorry. I have suspicions of this being in some cow manure I bought for the tomatoes are not doing well. This lines right up though with the day we live in. I'm sure the big boys are at the horse gate to shut the road side stands down.
All part of the great reset. Stay strong, independent farmers!
Your costs include the value of the crops you lost. Your grocery bill just skyrocketed.
I watch livestock fed on sprayed land get cancer tumors the size of baseballs in the time of 3 years. Imagine how poisonous that stuff is
Dow the manufacturer of Grazon needs a nice big class action lawsuit against them over this. They need to be hurt bad enough that they stop manufacturing it. It's sad that farmers today have been so brainwashed that they think they need this garbage from the chemical companies.
I had the same experience my tomatoes were curling up until i read the same thing from a gardener on you tube.The only thing i put on now is house scraps ,leaves and grass cutting (i do not use weed control on my grass) ,i bury branches in the ground in 3 years they rut.
Well it seems that manure, mulch, and maybe even potting soils one should not buy. It would seem chemical fertilizers are 'safe'.
Also sounds like a class action law suite should be called for.