New lawn chemical chief suspect in mysterious deaths of trees

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit Free Press

New lawn chemical chief suspect in mysterious deaths of trees
Jul. 10, 2011
BY CECIL ANGEL
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

In neighborhoods nationwide, millions of dollars worth of Norway spruce and white pine trees are mysteriously turning brown and dying this summer, and the chief suspect is a new lawn chemical.

State officials and lawn care professionals say they think Imprelis, an herbicide introduced last year for commercial use by DuPont, may be attacking pines and spruces as if they were weeds.

DuPont has sent its own teams across the country to check out complaints and, for the moment, has recommended not spraying Imprelis near those types of trees. The company says the herbicide may not have been handled properly.

Many landscapers in Michigan and elsewhere switched to Imprelis this year to control weeds such as dandelions because it was touted as safer for the environment than predecessors such as 2, 4-D.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20110710/NEWS06/107100467/New-lawn-chemical-chief-suspect-mysterious-deaths-trees?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

[MineralMan]

1. No problem on my lawn. I don't spray weeds at all.

If it's green, I mow it. My lawn is a mix of several types of grass, clover, plantains, wild violets, dandelions and whatever else sprouts. The trees are doing just fine. I just mow everything when it needs mowing, and it's all lush and green and soft. I do not have time in excess that I can use to patrol my lawn for non-grassy plants. All of the plants in my lawn can be mowed. After mowing, it's a lawn again. It takes half an hour.

[mitchtv]

2. I do the same,

I told my gardener not to scalp or reseed this year, just mow it.

[MineralMan]

5. What's been interesting to me is to watch what's happened to

the wild violets. They've changed their growth habit to produce flowers closer to the ground. I'm not sure how that happens, but now I have beautiful, tiny violets blooming in the lawn most of the summer. The dandelions I get mowed before they go to seed, so I get to see the flowers, but don't constantly reseed my yard. They've started blooming on shorter stalks, too. Adapting to conditions, I guess.

My mower is set at 3" in height. That seems to be a good balance to produce a lush growth of greenery, while allowing some blooming in the yard. This year, the clover's doing well, so I have snowy flowers here and there, and the honeybees are plentiful in the clover.

My neighbors don't really understand my philosophy, but they don't complain about it. We chat about lawns sometimes, though. I think I've converted one neighbor next door to my way of thinking. He works long hours, and doesn't really have time for constant fussing with his lawn.

[Odin2005]

8. Are wild violets those "lawn weeds" with the cute little purple flowers?

I love those, so pretty!

My mom has the same philosophy you do when it comes to her lawn.

[MineralMan]

10. That's them. They grow really well here in Minnesota. I have

them in several places in my lawn. Very pretty.

[Odin2005]

12. We get them around my apartment building. They are pretty!

[patrice]

20. Hmmm, apparently, they are edible:

http://creationsbydina.blogspot.com/2011/04/violet-jelly.html

[MineralMan]

25. Cool. I did not know that, although I have eaten the candy

Violet Crumble (not to be confused with the DUer of that screenname, of course). It's good, with a floral scent to it.

[MineralMan]

26. My lawn in California, before I moved, was heavy with wild

strawberries, especially near the trees and other shady areas. I actually seeded them into the lawn, in hopes of nibbling a few. The birds got most of them before I did, though.

[KittyWampus]

60. Also, Veronica Repens/Speedwell

[KT2000]

32. My dandelions do the same

they are tall at first and then after a few mowings, the flowers bloom close to the ground.
Weeds adapt to their environment - people don't.

[Igel]

34. Organisms are good at adapting.

I don't see a reason to worry about the backyard and spray all kinds of chemicals on it to keep it looking pretty.

So in the backyard I seem to be fighting a kind of nettle that blooms nicely at about 2-3". It may get to 4", tops, but doesn't need to grow any more than a couple of inches off the ground. (Actually, at 4" it flops over and grows among the grass.)

So it's doing fine.

On the other hand, walking in the backyard barefoot is a really risky affair. As I step on them I find them and yank them, but there are more this year than last year, and more last year than the year before. I figure in 4-5 more years there'll just be nettles and no grass, and it'll be time to brick over whatever hasn't been dug up for my vegetable garden.

Sometimes adaptation really sucks. Violets? Great. Nettles? Eh.

[awoke_in_2003]

48. I wish I could mow that low...

Saint Augustine grass that short in Texas heat would produce a brown yard.

[patrice]

17. Sounds like my place in the heart of Cupcake Land where law n order is next to godliness. nt

[trud]

29. MIneralMan

I'm with you. I love my lawn, and it's nice and green while my neighbor's conventional lawn is browning out. (Neither of us waters.)

[HopeHoops]

31. Same here - the dandylions and clover attract honey bees, bumble bees and all kinds of other bees.

I have a sticky note on the door that reads:

NO LAWN
POISON
COMPANIES
----------
NOT INTERESTED
NO WAY
NEVER

[eagertolearn]

37. Yeah my husband and I have gotten into very loud verbal fights

over spraying the yard. He would try to do it when I left town for a few days but I could always smell it. Finally last year he saw that documentary about how pesticides and herbicides are killing the bees and he "got it"! So many people beleive that this stuff is safe to use because our government wouldn't allow it if it wasn't. Little do they know that our governments been bought out and there is not enough regulations anywhere! Now we have a nice cover of dandelions and everyone is OK with them:)

[redwitch]

57. Also killing the people.

My mom died of non Hodgkins lymphoma. Her oncologist told us that particular cancer rate is growing due to pesticides and herbicides.

[we can do it]

40. same here except it takes me a little longer

i pull any weeds that bother me, then they don't come back.

[harun]

45. Me either and I think my lawn looks good. Not to mention the hundreds

of dollars I don't spend each year poisoning it.

Many of my co-workers treat the hell out of their lawns. Spend tons of money. Time after time a few years down the road I hear them start complaining of large brown spots, die off, more pests. Morons.

[Islandlife]

3. If you have to use 'em, use 'em responsibly

If you're cleaning your carpet with a new cleaner you test it in an inconspicuous area to limit possible damage.

If you have to use chemicals, make sure you use them responsibly.

The person applying the chemical should be held responsible, not the manufacturer.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Javaman]

43. right...

because all chemicals are perfectly safe, it's only misuse by us dumb consumers that makes them bad.

:eyes:

I guess we all were just misusing all that DDT back in the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's, right?

I have never seen a statement, such as yours, packed with so much concentrated ignorance.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

55. Do you think, if I eat at a restaurant and get sick from their food...

...I shouldn't sic Health Services on them because it's "my responsibility"?

Should there even be consumer protection laws?

[Islandlife]

59. No I don't

I handle things labeled "poison" differently from things intended to be food.

If something is poison, I assume it will kill things. However, I don't assume it will work as directed. I don't trust commercial "for profit" marketers.

Thank goodness for consumer protection laws that provide some level of public safety.

[EstimatedProphet]

56. If you have to post, you should post responsibly too

You are responsible for one of the most idiotic statements ever published on the internet. Do you really think neighborhoods NATIONWIDE are dying off because ONE PERSON uses a chemical irresponsibly?

This was such a pathetic bend-over-backwards kneejerk defense of chemical corporations that you could not have made it accidentally. Are you a major DuPont stockholder? Did you personally develop this chemical?

[benld74]

4. Well I really shouldn't mentioned how I get rid of my Weeds,,,,

[ellenfl]

6. you better check . . . i'm not sure ALL weeds are safe to smoke.

:smoke:

ellen fl

[Odin2005]

11. LOL, took me a while to get the joke!

[Odin2005]

9. And this shit ends up where? the ground water.

:puke:

[Kali]

14. surface waters, actually

but yeah -

:puke:

[roxiejules]

13. It gets worse...

via: http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/composters-concerned-about-new-dupontscotts-product-that-mimics-banned-herbicide/


Dupont is also teaming up with The Scotts MiracleGro Company to offer a new fertilizer/herbicide product to homeowners that will contain aminocyclopyrachlor. Unlike Imprelis, it will not require a professional pesticide applicators license. It will, however, carry similar label restrictions against composting.

Aminocyclopyrachlor- the active ingredient in Imprelis- has been found to remain in grass clippings for extended periods of time. When those grass clippings are composted and used for mulch in gardens, the persistent herbicide- even in trace amounts- can cause major damage to vegetable crops.

As reported in an article written by Caroline Davies for The Observer in 2008, gardeners across Britain were angered when compost tainted with aminopyralid caused a loss of their crops. It was believed that reconstituted grass containing the herbicide was fed to cows. The manure used from these cows was then sold to farmers and gardeners. Dow AgroSciences, maker of the herbicide, responded on their website with this statement: ‘As a general rule, we suggest damaged produce (however this is caused) should not be consumed.’ Those who have already used contaminated manure are advised not to replant on the affected soil for at least a year.


Home-grown veg ruined by toxic herbicide : http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/29/food.agriculture

[WhiteTara]

19. I read that you can't mulch with the grass clippings

after spraying with some chemical the other day. Thanks. Now I know what they were talking about. Some "people" are so determined to kill the world.

[SpiralHawk]

15. Do not spray poison all over your frikking yard

Talk about toxic ideas...

[wordpix]

54. +1000 ---let the bees, birds, butterflies and predator insects live!

It's POISON!

[WranglerRog]

16. Ah well, I haven't mowed my 2+ acre lawn in 3 years........

however my 7 (this year) East Friesian rams do a great job. No underbrush, very few weeds and the lawn evenly mowed. Of course you sometimes have to wipe your feet before entering the house but that's a small price to pay.

[bvar22]

18. Why ANYONE would dump poisons around their home...

..is a mystery to me.
The Suburbs are beyond TOXIC.

Would you let your children play on that deadly crap?

[Odin2005]

21. People have been brainwashed into wanting pure bluegrass lawns. Even in...

...the desert. We are a nation of idiots.

[harun]

51. I don't even think it looks good. Looks fake to me.

[kestrel91316]

22. Killing TREES in an effort to control an edible weed. In a land with

too many hungry poor.

Dandelions are very nutritious when you don't spray them with poisons.

[supernova]

23. This explains a lot

Up and down the highway here, great swathes of evergreens are brown and dying. I thought it was some kind of parasite or evergreen blight. But a new herbicide would be a just the culprit.


:-(

I don't use anything around my yard. And my lawn looks just fine.

[HankyDubs]

24. Ahh DuPont

the gift that keeps on giving.

[felix_numinous]

27. Maintaining a yard to look like an English Garden

takes a lot of work if done by hand. Thing is, Americans are so attached (and obsessed really) with having a yard that look like Disneyland, that power tools and chemicals and underground plastic tarps are in use to maintain this artificial look.

Now that we have to grow our own food and are aware of these dangerous chemicals, this artificial look should become obsolete. I hope that more and more neighborhoods become green, and allow people to apply permaculture on their property, so they can live off their land. I hope people organize more community gardens too.

http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/index/ -for anyone interested in learning about permaculture :)

Have a good Sunday~~

[Arugula Latte]

39. Doing my part by having a woodsy, overgrown yard

Lazy?! NO! Green!

;) :patriot:

[harvey007]

28. Corporate crimes

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=173

[trud]

30. sue?

As part of getting city heritage tree protection for a tree in my yard, I had to have it evaluated by an arborist. Besides what you'd expect in the evaluation he also estimated its replacement cost at thousands of dollars. It would be nice if Dupont were on the hook for the replacement value of those trees.

[Hubert Flottz]

33. Hell Dupont has been killing people around here.

Cut corners to save money and got a man killed about a year ago at Belle WV.

[Demeter]

35. Thank you for posting

I'm going to go beat some blockheads with this....

[daleo]

36. We have daisies, vetch, clover, hairbell

My wife is just as happy to let these slowly displace lawn grass. Plus, she puts dandilion greens in salad. It's all good. Bees like it too. No neighbor complaints so far.

[hedgehog]

38. Our front lawn is now home to several oaks and several maples

as well as a Bradford pear tree. The grass is being displaced by a lovely rolling patch of assorted mosses. It looks like a Zen garden version of an ocean. No mowing, and the house stays cool!

[Evasporque]

41. But the grass is perfect!

THose SPruce and Pine will grind up real nice to make some purple landscaping woodchip mulch...

[hauweg]

42. No mercy

for godless commie terrorist dandelions. If it helps to take my lawn back.... ;)

[harun]

44. Anything that kills one form of life will probably harm another.

[LibertyLover]

46. Not just trees or weeds, but animals too

Several years ago neighbors of ours finally got around to getting a dog for the kids. They got a lovely standard poodle who was a large lovable goofball of a dog. Sadly he didn't live with them long - a little less than a year. The same neighbors also used one of those lawn services with "chemical" as part of their name. Once a week the little white panel truck was at their house mowing, trimming and making sure that their yard was as green and monocultural and bug-free as could be thanks to the wonder of chemicals. Then the kids and the dog would romp all over the lovely, green, freshly sprayed with pesticides lawn. The dog died from pesticide poisoning and the kids got pretty sick. The wife came over to our house one day shortly after the dog died so that her kids could pet our dog and I heard her say to my mom that she had no idea that "lawn chemicals" as she called them could be so toxic. My mother, who did not suffer fools gladly replied that it was why they were called pesticides, 'cause like with homicide, something was going to wind up dead. The family never bothered to replace the dog and kept using the lawn service.

[mr clean]

47. About to get worst, just wait, the genetically engineered Kentucky Bluegrass is coming.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/wait-did-the-usda-just-deregulate-all-new-genetically-modified-crops/

By Tom Philpott
Mother Jones

It’s a hoary bureaucratic trick, making a controversial announcement on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, when most people are daydreaming about what beer to buy on the way home from work, or are checking movie times online. But that’s precisely what the US Department of Agriculture pulled last Friday.

In an innocuous-sounding press release <1> titled “USDA Responds to Regulation Requests Regarding Kentucky Bluegrass,” agency officials announced their decision not to regulate a “Roundup Ready” strain of Kentucky bluegrass—that is, a strain genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate, Monsanto’s widely used herbicide, which we know as Roundup. The maker of the novel grass seed, Scotts Miracle Gro, is now free to sell it far and wide. So you’ll no doubt be seeing Roundup Ready bluegrass blanketing lawns and golf courses near you—and watching anal neighbors and groundskeepers literally dousing the grass in weed killer without fear of harming a single precious blade.

Another link:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/07/usda-deregulate-roundup-gmo-tom-philpott?page=2

On Friday, the agency also retracted its only other hook for regulating GM crops—the noxious-weeds provision. The Center for Food Safety had petitioned the USDA to classify genetically modified bluegrass as a noxious weed. The case for this is strong: Gurian-Sherman explains that bluegrass has light pollen that can be carried for miles on the wind, meaning that genetically modified bluegrass can easily transfer its genes to established conventional bluegrass.

And like most grasses, bluegrass spreads rapidly. Anyone who has ever grown a garden can testify that it's tough to get rid of unwanted turf grass. In fact, Scotts is also seeking deregulation of Roundup Ready bentgrass, another grass that has proven hard to control. In 2005, Scotts grew trial plots of its bentgrass in Oregon. It escaped the boundaries of the experimental plot and is still creating problems for homeowners miles away.

[Devil_Fish]

50. it's sad that so meny of us have been convinced that we need to grow a worthless crop (Grass) in our

yards. I would rather have a rock garden.

[hobbit709]

49. whatever grass that grows in my yard has survived TX summers with no water.

[buckrogers1965]

52. New is bad.

Until proven good. This is how things work in reality.

Only in fantasy psyco land do we assume that something is good unless proven bad.

Right now you can release anything and unless someone can prove it is bad, nobody can stop you. It could be 100% poison that kills anyone that comes into contact with it horribly from cancer in 10 years and until you get sued for decades you can keep right on producing it. If it is profitable enough you can just bribe congressmen and they won't even pass a law against you.

The assumption should be that any change is bad unless you can scientifically prove that it is good.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

53. Dupont: it is your fault.

[BiggJawn]

58. Without lush lawns, old men have no reason to live.

Yelling "You gawd-dam kids get the hell off my weed patch!" just doesn't have the same life-affirming qualities...

[JCMach1]

61. If you have to weed your lawn, dig it up, you aren't doing it right

I had a brilliant lawn in Florida by killing the monoculture. I used about 6 different grasses for the different conditions. Careful maintenance and a bit of organic fertilizer at the beginning of the growing season were all that is needed.

Them just mow to PROPER length and weeds will be few and far between.