Suspicions Grow Re. Imprelis Poisoning Trees & Shrubs; DuPont - "May Have Been Errors" By Users

[hatrack]

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Less than five ounces an acre, the company told suppliers, kills clover, dandelions, plantains, wild violets and the tough ground plant golf course managers call "creeping Charlie." The high concentration makes it cheaper to ship, which saves fuel. DuPont said hundreds of tests showed Imprelis spared grass, trees, landscape shrubs, and crawling and walking creatures, if used right. Dealers listed Imprelis for hundreds of dollars a gallon, and it flew off shelves. Then the evergreens started turning brown.

By June, state agricultural extension services in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Indiana were naming Imprelis as a suspect in the blighting of Norway spruce and eastern white pines, Northern trees which are not native to much of the country but have been planted by the millions in yards, golf courses, cemeteries and parks, in the path of the turf chemical industry's marketers.

After spraying Imprelis in April and May, "professional turf-grass managers from Iowa to New Jersey experienced damage to certain tree species, primarily Norway spruce and white pine," Pete Landschoot, professor of turf-grass science at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in a June warning posted by the university's extension service.

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DuPont on June 17 sent a warning letter to dealers and sprayers. "Do not employ Imprelis where Norway spruce or white pine are present on, or in close proximity to, the property to be treated," warned Michael McDermott, head of suburban Wilmington-based DuPont Agricultural Products, who had introduced Imprelis at industry gatherings all winter. Not that DuPont was taking the blame: "In most cases" of damaged trees, he wrote, Imprelis had been mixed with other weed-killers or liquid fertilizer, and there "may have been errors" in how it was used. Since then, news reports have been coming in across the country about trees in nurseries, parks and homes left brown and stark, as if they were weeds.

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http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20110717_PhillyDeals__DuPont_catches_flak_over_Imprelis_weed-killer.html

[intaglio]

1. It's bad stuff but ...

I wish it poisoned leylandii.