Thursday 7 July 2016

Disaster

Disaster

There are always set backs. Some bigger than others but over the last few weeks I've encountered a biggie!

I've done a lot of reading about this and have come to the conclusion that I have herbicide in my manure. I'm not 100% sure of the facts but I think I few years ago the EU changed a few rules and normal broad leaf herbicide was changed, or banned and farmers etc had to change the herbicide they used.

Anyway, while a "safer" herbicide was chosen this change had knock on effects. Instead of the herbicide decaying or being diluted with rain it was getting on to grass, normally in grazing fields. This was not a problem in itself, the weeds died and the grass didn't. The herbicide on the grass was eaten by horses and passed through them unaffected and without affecting the horses. But it ending up in the manure as far as I can tell.

The manure is then used by gardeners. It isn't a problem for many plants but Peas, Beans, Tomatoes and Potatoes are effected. Apparently it can take bacteria 2 years to break it down.

I have spread manure everywhere. I have 2 piles of it and have taken various loads of manure. I think some is / was effected and some isn't but I have been potting up tomatoes and cape gooseberries in a mixture of manure and compost. The main reason for this is that when selling large plants in pots the manure holds moisture far, far better than just compost. My manure is free so it also offers a cheap potting mixture for selling. The bottom 50 to 75% of the pots was this mixture while then top 25 to 50% was pure compost. The plants that have been placed in these pots were doing fine, as their roots were still in the shallow compost but as time has gone on and the roots go into the manure / compost mixture extreme leaf curl is being seen.

Luckily I haven't sold many Tomato plants in this mixture and the plants I have sold aren't affected.
Cape Gooseberry leaf curl
The photos of Tomato plants don't do the problem justice but Cape Gooseberry is also affected and shows the problem better in a photo. The plants are badly stunted and the new growing tips and leaves are curled in an extreme way. The growing tips of the tomato shrivel up and die. Existing leaves are unaffected.

Cape Gooseberry leaf curl
It isn't caused by mites or flies, because I'd see them. It isn't a virus because I think that this would show as discolouration, yellowing of leaves. On one website it was suggested that tiny amounts of herbicide can travel a long distance on the wind but I have discounted this because some plants have never been outside.

A virus would contaminate neighbouring plants but I have some side by side unaffected.

When planting out in the poly tunnel the manure was dug into the ground in patches, with the manure coming from different batches. Some are OK some not.

Cape Gooseberry without leaf curl
It was suggested planting peas and beans in the same place as the problem. If the herbicide is in the soil Peas and Beans would also be effected.  The test sowings of both Peas and Beans have also been effected, indicating that the problem is soil based.

My manure supplier says that he doesn't, and never has used herbicide, and when I first asked him I tried to stress that it didn't matter and that I just needed to know so that I could avoid using this manure for Tomatoes etc for a couple of years and use it for other plants. So I'm none the wiser as to whether it is in the manure, had he said he did it would have at least confirmed what I think.

Another possibility is that it is in the shop bought compost. This has happened to other people in the past. I can't rule out the bags of compost because although the Tomatoes that are OK are in pure compost I also have purchased compost from 3 different places and have had 4 batches of compost so this could also explain why some plants are OK and some not. 

All the plants in the greenhouse are OK - pure compost used here, half in the poly tunnel are effected and plants in pots outside are almost all affected.

It has stopped me from selling about 20 large tomato plants, and about 8 Cape Gooseberry plants. The others are for us, which is less of a problem although will have the knock on effect of not having their fruit to sell or eat.

If it isn't one problem, it is another but does highlight why commercial growers are paranoid about eliminating pests, viruses and having quality control on all inputs and why they try and control their environment to such a high degree. It also helps to explain why farmers are happy to kill soil bacteria and bugs with gay abandon and rely on applying liquid fertiliser. We may see it as destroying the environment but they probably see it as controlling the environment and eliminating as many unknowns as possible that could effect their crops and income.  




8 comments:

  1. Oh no :( I know Mark has had similar problems with weedkiller in commercial compost. It seems there’s more of this around than you'd expect. I've no doubt you'll bounce back, though.

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  2. Thanks Matt. Mark's website looks a good one, I'll be reading a few more of his posts :)

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  3. Hi Andy; Sorry to hear that you have also been hit by this problem, which is more widespread than many people acknowledge. Although I did use some "Composted Stable Manure" I came to the conclusion that the herbicide in my garden came from lawn weedkiller in commercial multi-purpose compost. It's very hard to say which one though, because I always used to buy whatever was on the best offer at my local Garden Centre, so I used several. I suspected Westland MPC, but I have been in touch with Westland and they deny ever having used Green Waste, which is probably where the problem lies in my case. Once the stuff is in your soil / compost there is not a lot you can do - and it takes at least 3 years to dissipate, as I can tell you from personal experience! Make sure you don't compost any material from affected plants - burn it if you can.

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    1. Thanks Mark. I'll be testing the compost and manure next year before investing so much time potting up. I have a large compost area plus a large weed compost area so no need to burn. I can afford to wait for it to break down rather than burn.

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  4. Terrible news. It seems like nothing is safe now. You expect that the sellers of compost and manure either control or test what goes in, but I guess all you need is one supplier who doesn't declare what they've been spraying with and that's it. Really making sure would be too expensive.

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    1. I think the answer has to be something along the lines of growing the fastest plant, such as pea, in the mixture before potting up tomatoes etc.

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  5. This is a horrible thing to happen when you take such care with everything you do. I hope you can ameliorate the damage and hopefully get to the bottom of the problem.

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    1. Thanks Annie, from now on I'll be presuming everything is effected and carrying out tests before potting up. There is too much time and energy spent on the plants to ignore the problem next year. Only wish I'd known about this problem before hand. When it takes a year before you can rectify the problem it feels like a big problem.

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