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Weedkiller use suspended over manure worries
Licences for weedkillers which get into garden manure and kill off plants have been suspended, following a Yorkshire Post report on the problem.
But the decision has annoyed cattle farmers, professional horse-keepers and others who use the products on grassland.
Six weeks ago, the Yorkshire Post reported on the unforeseen effects of products containing aminopyralid.
The Green Lane Allotments Association in Horbury, Wakefield, had noticed plants dying on plots which shared manure from the same source – and discovered, through the internet, that the problem was widespread.
The Royal Horticultural Society and the government's Pesticides Safety Directorate traced the problem back to a relatively new range of products, such as Forefront, designed to take out big weeds like docks and ragwort.
It was known that the active ingredient, aminopyralid, would still be potent after passing through animals which ate the sprayed pasture, or hay or silage made from it.
The packaging warned farmers that manure and wet bedding straw from the animals might affect potatoes, tomatoes, peas, beans, carrots, lettuces, delphiniums and roses.
But the gardeners' experiences showed that the warning was not always passed down the line. The farmer who supplied Green Lane Allotments told them he had never used aminopyralids, but he had bought silage from somebody else.
Susan Garrett, chairwoman of the Allotments Association, said yesterday: "That was as far as we could take it. The most frustrating thing is that nobody that we have talked to seems to think it is their job to go back down the line and find out where the communications breakdown is happening."
But a spokesman for Dow AgroSciences said that was the question which would now be addressed.
Dow has voluntarily suspended the sale of seven products containing aminopyralid – Banish, Forefront, Halcyon, Pharaoh, Pro-Banish, Runway and Synero – and AgChemAccess Ltd has stopped selling a rival called Upfront. The Pesticides Safety Directorate has suspended approval for the supply and use of all products containing aminopyralid "whilst further investigations are undertaken".
The PSD press office was unable to get any more specific information last night, but the Dow spokesman said: "The investigations will be into stewardship and how we can be sure that precautionary advice is passed down the line."
The decision has been greeted with some annoyance on farmers' websites and Dow's grassland manager, Colin Bowers, said: "We are very disappointed at having to take this step because for livestock farmers, the product has offered real benefits in terms of the most effective control of injurious and pervasive grassland weeds that reduce production and even threaten livestock health.
"These benefits depend on users following the approved directions for use. Where conditions of use are not reliably being met, it is appropriate for us to voluntarily suspend use while there are further investigations and a revised stewardship programme developed."
Mrs Garrett commented: "If it had not been for email and the internet, nobody would have heard anything about all this."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 8 C to 21 C
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