Tree Damage From Crop Spraying
- Thread starter TNTreeHugger
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
A lot of people said that.
You're not suggesting I should have just taken your word for it rather than having an official inspector from the DoA physically look at it, are you?
I didn't think so.
That's okay. Everyone needs to toot their own horn sometimes.
Oh, and while I've got your attention, who the heck messed with the smilies??
They've been rearranged and are out of place - just like trying to find something on a store shelf, that's been in the same place for years, and all of a sudden they move it!
Now that my problem has been solved, for the most part, I'd like to focus on you and what you're spraying, if you don't mind...
What exactly does "industrial weed control" and "soil sterilant" mean?
Yes, I know I can google, but you're more fun.
thanks for the update @TNTreeHugger Hope it all goes well going forward. Certainly keep an eye on things. Try to not let it be a "closed case" for at least a year or two.
Now that my problem has been solved, for the most part, I'd like to focus on you and what you're spraying, if you don't mind...
What exactly does "industrial weed control" and "soil sterilant" mean?
Yes, I know I can google, but you're more fun.
Industrial weed control means gravel and pavement and nothing green. NOTHING.
There are herbicides that when thrown on the ground, linger there, and kill all the plants. They are usually quite expensive, and they vary quite a bit in how well they work. In general, this is usually called "soil sterilant", although that term is actually quite inaccurate. The herbicides don't really kill much of anything except for the plants, but the desired appearance is as close to a moonscape as you can get.
Said chemicals have some drift problems too, but ususally in the soil. If you're not careful, you can kill the neighbors trees, make a big dead run through the middle of their lawn, or maybe just kill a bit too much of the curbline that the lawn starts receding from the curb several feet. That looks bad when it happens.
Oh, and while I've got your attention, who the heck messed with the smilies??
They've been rearranged and are out of place - just like trying to find something on a store shelf, that's been in the same place for years, and all of a sudden they move it!
My smileys are behaving like normal. I suspect the problem is on your end. Try scaling the screen resolution up and down to see if that changes anything. I am clueless, regardless.
Better be careful with the Arsenal, it will migrate through the soil an kill many types of trees. It's particularity dangerous where high water flow is present. We use Imazapyr to treat cogongrass in pine plantations. We use Rodeo @ 4% volume to volume plus a non-ionic surfac-tant labeled for aquatic use @ 0.5% volume to volume for problem areas where runoff may be a problem for spot spraying or using Arsenal. Also we try to adhere to application spec's for susceptible non-target plants like within 50 feet on level topography less than 20% slope or within 200 feet on steep topography 20% slope or more.
Thanks.
The nurseryman came out to look and his first words were "Yup, 2-4-D" He said there is a lot of damage that I should be compensated for by the farmers insurance. He told me of when it happened to him and his insurance had to payout $30k to another nurseryman. Of course, that's a different scenario since that was damage to an inventory of retail nursery stock and a business loss.
I called my ins. and he said I would have to know which farmer and they would have to contact their ins. I could file on mine, but I wouldn't get more than $500. I wouldn't file on mine for any amount since it wasn't my fault.
I called the inspector back, told him what the nurseryman said. He pretty much said don't jump the gun, wait and see how they recover over the next six months to a year. He has the report and pretty much knows whos responsible from his investigation (but wouldn't say who) and said I can always make a claim for damages at a later date.
And that makes more sense to me than trying to do it now, when the only evidence is crumpled leaves, like Raintree said earlier.
I thought I was pretty much over this, but I'm not sure. I'm thinking of calling the newspaper, the county executive, and my attorney friend back and asking her about the possibility of a potential class action suit, against the chemical company- not the farmers, like Atpro mentioned earlier.
Farmer #2 called me last night and said he drove around the county yesterday and saw damage all over. He's very concerned especially about the obvious damage to the crowns of mature trees like the oaks and made the comment to me more than once that maybe it's time they did something different or went back to tilling.
This is a terrible thing to happen to any community, no matter how infrequent it happens. It should never happen. And unlike a natural disaster, this kind of man-made disaster is entirely preventable.
I have complete sympathy for the farmers also, it's not their fault. The fault lies squarely at the feet of the chemical companies, like I said earlier. They have deliberately devised a method of chemical application that has created a monopoly for the suppliers. The market that was once controlled by Round-up/glyphosate and their companion Round-up ready soybeans appears to be soon replace with the Dicamba and the Dicamba-ready soybeans.
I don't see how the farmers really have any choice about what they use on their crops, they are at the mercy of a handful of chemical companies - and from what I've read in the past, these companies are no friends of the farmers either and will sue them at the drop of a hat if they can. It's obvious they will throw them under the bus when it comes to litigation and blame the farmer and not the chemical.
One thing I'm sure of is that property owners are stuck in the middle when they suffer losses due to chemical "trespass." Especially in a rural farming area where row crops and nursery stock are king.
The farmers have insurance to cover any damages and the nursery's supply the replacement trees.
There's really no incentive to stop the practice of spraying 2-4-D esters, other than a conscience, and then what are the alternatives that won't also negatively impact the farmers, community, and environment?
Maybe Dudders was at least partly right.
The problem is on my end, but I didn't cause it.
This
used to be on the far right, to the right of this 
Now it's at the far left on the next row down, to the left of this
which used to be the first in that row.Trust me, I use them often.
Either something was removed (don't see anything new) or like you said, the size of the box has been changed.
No biggie. Just a minor inconvenience for my ocd.
At my suggestion, management tried to delete this unfriendly little icon from the available emojies: 
Sadly, despite their best efforts, it couldn't be eliminated, as you can see.
We had a similarly themed and even more offensive emojii that was deleted, and it was formerly grouped in the set at the top of the list. It seems that someone put a report out on a post flipping them off, and it came to our attention.
It is likely that this effort might have influenced the order of the icons as displayed. To the extent that my suggestion to eliminate offensive emojies influenced your preferred order?
Sadly, despite their best efforts, it couldn't be eliminated, as you can see.We had a similarly themed and even more offensive emojii that was deleted, and it was formerly grouped in the set at the top of the list. It seems that someone put a report out on a post flipping them off, and it came to our attention.
It is likely that this effort might have influenced the order of the icons as displayed. To the extent that my suggestion to eliminate offensive emojies influenced your preferred order?
In my opinion, the Arsenal is a little bit weak, as it doesn't last very long into the season and doesn't cover as wide a spectrum of plants. Still, it's a pretty good additive to roundup, especially with the foliar apsorption. I've not noticed any runoff, but that's because I'm not trying to get full season control out of it. In my opinion, that just takes too much of the stuff. Like you said, it washes downstream.
Other total kill herbicides last longer with almost no risk of drift, but they are slow acting, and need to be applied early in the season to get results.
It's always a balancing act to get the results you want.
I had a patch of trees I tried to kill with the roundup/arsenal mix, and sprayed a double dose over the top of the thicket of trees. Two months later, they didn't appear to have been made nervous, much less gravely ill. All my weeds died, though!
I told you so.At my suggestion, management tried to delete this unfriendly little icon from the available emojies:
We had a similarly themed and even more offensive emojii that was deleted, and it was formerly grouped in the set at the top of the list. It seems that someone put a report out on a post flipping them off, and it came to our attention.
It is likely that this effort might have influenced the order of the icons as displayed. To the extent that my suggestion to eliminate offensive emojies influenced your preferred order?
View attachment 989306
Thanks for solving that little mystery for me.
Yes, you can't really get compensation until you can prove what you are being compensated for. Right now, there is nothing.....
NO.......
Don't do anything that could put you in the crosshairs and make it look as if you are the problem, like some greenie nut trying to stop the farmers from doing what they do......That will only make it more difficult for you to bring legal action if it come to that. As far as suing the chemical company, thats not going to happen as there is no grounds for such a suit. The problem was caused by negligence of one or more farmers misusing a product that is approved and legal for use by them. Unless you have many thousands of dollars to prove otherwise, thats how the courts will see it, and the only people who will get paid are the lawyers.
However, if what the farmers are using turned your pecans into Truffula trees and the fish in your pond now have three eyes, thats something entirely different.....
Look at it this way - If you were to use a spray gun to paint your fence, and the neighbors house got covered with overspray, thats not a problem with the paint or the spray gun, its negligence on the part of the painter. Negligence means you did something that you should have known would do damage to property or hurt somebody, and thats exactly the case. You can't sue the paint or equipment manufacturers because the painter did something stupid. Its entirely on him to make compensation.
After seeing damage to my blackberries this morning, and adding that to the list of other fruit and nuts that may not appear this fall, it made me think about all the wildlife that may suffer from lack of food in the areas that have seen herbicide damage.
So, I called the TWRA.
The nice (but unsympathetic) man I spoke to basically said, If there is a mass starvation event, it will likely only affect "common" animals that will likely recover next year.
Looks like I just need to accept the fact that nobody gives a rats ass about what happened but me.
I talked to farmer #2 again though and think I finally got it straight on who the likely culprit is: farmer #1 who I saw spraying beside my property.
Farmer #2 said he sprayed dicamba, and if the dicamba had damaged my trees, it surely would have also decimated the soybean crop planted by farmer #1.
So, going to wait until I get the final report and see what it says. then likely I'll call farmer #1 and get him to talk to his ins. agent. I don't think I'll have any problems with him at all. He may even want to just pay out of pocket, as farmer #2 suggested, and skip the in. company. Which is fine with me.
But the best outcome would be not having to do anything at all and nothing dies.
Took more picture today after I mowed. Things are looking worse by the day.
Add blackberries to the list? The leaves look okay, but the flowers look cooked.
So, I called the TWRA.
The nice (but unsympathetic) man I spoke to basically said, If there is a mass starvation event, it will likely only affect "common" animals that will likely recover next year.
Looks like I just need to accept the fact that nobody gives a rats ass about what happened but me.
I talked to farmer #2 again though and think I finally got it straight on who the likely culprit is: farmer #1 who I saw spraying beside my property.
Farmer #2 said he sprayed dicamba, and if the dicamba had damaged my trees, it surely would have also decimated the soybean crop planted by farmer #1.
So, going to wait until I get the final report and see what it says. then likely I'll call farmer #1 and get him to talk to his ins. agent. I don't think I'll have any problems with him at all. He may even want to just pay out of pocket, as farmer #2 suggested, and skip the in. company. Which is fine with me.
But the best outcome would be not having to do anything at all and nothing dies.
Took more picture today after I mowed. Things are looking worse by the day.
Add blackberries to the list? The leaves look okay, but the flowers look cooked.
Yes, of course you are right.
That was the greenie nut talking. She came to her senses.
There won't be any mass starvations. Animals are resilient and quite intelligent. If there is no food there they will go elsewhere. When the food sources return, so will the animals. And please, don't get it in your mind that you need to feed them, thats the worst thing you can do for them.
That is probably true most of the time. Until it can be demonstrated that the product label (or the advertising) is misleading and that damage occurs when the label is followed. Now you got a class action suit.
Think Imprellis! They didn't pay all those claims because the applicators were all careless.
"The reports prompted the EPA to launch an investigation of DuPont Imprelis, and the agency eventually found that DuPont knew of Imprelis’ potential to damage evergreen trees/ DuPont’s own test data showed that Imprelis was harmful to Norway spruce, balsam fir, and other trees. In August 2011, the EPA issued DuPont a “Stop Sale” notice, and ordered DuPont to halt the sale, use or distribution of DuPont Imprelis herbicide, prompting the Imprelis recall."
We use Arsenal AC 53% concentrate. Our main use was for timber land prep, maintenance, cogongrass control and spraying coastal hay fields to get rid of bahiagrass. Imazapyr herbicides attacks just one key plant enzyme so that tree may be resistant like pine.
That's what I was thinking since it wasn't just my yard and the one farmer, and since the inspector said he's seen "a lot of gassing this year" and the local co-op confirms, that tells me it's a product issue.
I contacted the EPA and haven't gotten a response.
Similar threads
