It's true. In 2008 my Lottie (in England) was one of the badly affected ones, with plants showing symptoms exactly as described in that article. In 2009 most of the effects had gone but there were still noticeable deformities on some plants. I'm hoping all will be better in 2010, but our UK magazine The Organic Way has just published an update saying that aminopyralid is going back on the market here. We don't know what safeguards, if any, will be in place to keep our manure supplies uncontaminated.
As well as minding for myself and other gardeners, I mind for the bloke who used to supply our site's manure. He did nothing wrong but he's lost a lot of business because of this.
Replying to own comment! - there's a simple way to test for contamination. Mix the suspect manure with soil or potting compost then sow tomato seeds. If the seedlings are affected, they'll be so stunted and twisted that you'll be in no doubt.
Potential contamination of compost is why I'm very reluctant to partake of the free compost from my local dump. They have a section set aside for people to bring their yard, garden and kitchen waste, which is then composted down. We're allowed what I believe is one bucket at a time of the stuff. However, I haven't taken any yet because I don't know that someone hasn't put in something that contains residue of herbicides and/or pesticides and such. I'd rather make my own compost and thus cut down on the chances of my inadvertently introducing something nasty into my garden.
yup, last year I thought I'd supplement my leaf pile with the proffered curbside bags, but then figured the chemicals they'd put on their lawns was no doubt raked up with the leaves.
Yeah, bottom line is almost all commercial grass and grain crops are grown with broadleaf herbicide use, and so are a great deal of lawns. You're best off just not using grass, hay or straw compost or mulch on veggie gardens.
My personal opinion is, don't over-react. There's good organic matter there. Some plant families are far more susceptible than others and in my experience, the pyralid breaks down in soil after a year or two. It's far from ideal, but if the cheapest, most accessible muck or compost is one that might hav pyralid contamination, I say buy it, test it with tomato seeds, and if necessary give it a year or two to break down. Spread it out to expose it to weather. Use that patch for a monocotyledonal green manure or for cucurbits. My pumpkin crop was excellent on soil that I'd fed heavily with the contaminated manure. Not that I'm actively looking to buy again from that source, but if needs must, I think it's better than being short of organic matter.
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As well as minding for myself and other gardeners, I mind for the bloke who used to supply our site's manure. He did nothing wrong but he's lost a lot of business because of this.
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Potential contamination of compost is why I'm very reluctant to partake of the free compost from my local dump. They have a section set aside for people to bring their yard, garden and kitchen waste, which is then composted down. We're allowed what I believe is one bucket at a time of the stuff. However, I haven't taken any yet because I don't know that someone hasn't put in something that contains residue of herbicides and/or pesticides and such. I'd rather make my own compost and thus cut down on the chances of my inadvertently introducing something nasty into my garden.
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