Here's a link:

Washington State Bioassay Test for Herbicide Contamination

I bought a bale of compressed alfalfa, because I read they don't use herbicide on it, but when I googled alfalfa/herbicide, they do use herbicides in spring. Perhaps not the "persistent" kind, but I don't know the names. I figure I need to test it before I use it. The asparagus needs mulching. I wish thyme liked me, I would use the short kind as living mulch. I'm sorry this happened George, but soon you will be an expert and will educate others about this problem.

I visited with a neighbor who is quite knowledgeable about these herbicides and who has the literature on the major brands. What I've learned is that even the hay from a field sprayed, say, with Grazon, can cause damage to your garden, 18 months later, and... having gone through the digestive track of a ruminant! Wow! That's powerful stuff! I don't think I even want that going through my ruminants! So, the conclusion to the matter is that we lost more than a year's worth of mulch and compost. ALL of it will have to be discarded!

I was telling my neighbor that from now on I won't ever buy "clean" Bermuda hay. He informed me that if it's weed free, it's been sprayed. The good thing is that he and his family do hay and offered to give us some of their weediest round bales this summer! I was telling him how I like my hay weedy, not only because of this problem, but also because the goats prefer weeds in their hay. And, he offered these round bales, which they don't usually sell, on account of all the weeds. I'd say this is a perfect fit! One thing I love about where we live are the neighbors!

George, One of the odd things about these types of herbicides is that passing through the animals' digestive tracts seems to somehow condense them into a stronger concentration. It boggles my brain.

Yes, the Grazon thing is why I aged my hay forever last time before ever using it, and it still made my nervous.

Your neighbors sound terrific. We have a lot of terrific neighbors too. I think Oklahoma has the nicest people around, and every time I think about all our wonderful neighbors, I think that when we moved here, we truly hit the friendly neighbor jackpot!

Dawn

I can tell you from first hand experience that hay that has been sprayed with grazon can sit in a barn for years and still be deadly to plants. I had some that was 2 years old and it wiped out a couple hundred plants years ago. I haven't sprayed anything on my pastures since, and I have the weeds to prove it. Lots of weeds

I've heard of some people having trouble with their soil for 3 to 4 years after it was contaminated with herbicide carryover, though that was more in the early years when we still were learning about herbicide carryover, how it was occurring, etc. I guess it depends on how much herbicide carryover there is as well as how much rainfall and how much biological activity in the soil. That's one of the hard parts when it happens to someone----no one can tell them if the garden soil will be okay to use again in 1 year or 2, 3 or more. Our friends simply built a new garden in a new spot, which is an option rural folks with lots of land have, but that suburban or urban gardeners may not have.

Every time I walk into a farm store or feed store and walk past the Grazon, I feel a shiver up my spine.

We've got the weeds as well, and always have since we don't use herbicides. I find it easier to accept the pretty weeds like butterfly weed, Mexican hat, winecup and prickly pear than the Johnson grass, ragweed, crabgrass, bindweed and giant ragweed. I wish we could choose our weeds, but they seem to choose us instead.

This type of distortion can also be caused by overwatering/ lack of nutrient uptake. With our recent floods, I would at least look into this a bit more.

Well, the problem is that almost all the other plants in the garden are find, including those which are directly adjacent to the affected. The main difference visible, in their conditions, is that the affected ones received barn scrapings, most specifically, hay and animal manure which had begun to decompose. I had one patch of lambs quarters, on the other end of the garden which did the same thing. The leaves looked like they were melting. That too, happened to be where I mulched with decomposed hay and animal manure from the barn. I have NEVER seen this before now. Can't see that it could be water, as our garden is so well drained that we can get 4" of rain this morning and the soil will drain enough to be worked by tomorrow.

Not only are herbicides sprayed on hay sometimes pesticides are sprayed on also.

George, I am in the same quandary down here in Stephens County. At first we assumed it was only the hay, but now I am not so sure. My son picked up old hay that was dumped out at the fairgrounds after some sort of horse event... horse apples are not hard to misinterpret. ;-) Here's what happened. It had some horse droppings in it, so he figured it was probably used as bedding, which I believe to be true, because horse people don't feed low quality hay. It was late last fall, after he had cleaned off the garden beds. He ran the hay through the shredder and applied it to the beds over the top of an application of compost. This spring he pushed it aside and placed some seed potatoes on top of the soil and replaced the old hay, then piled wood chips over that. He has been growing them that way with very good results. Ok, so the potatoes came up and soon showed the same signs as your tomatoes. I read about this problem on this forum, so he raked all that mulch off and disposed of it. Not long after we had potatoes coming up from small ones missed the year before. They have been late.. probably because they were deep in the soil and cold because of the heavy layer of mulch. Funny thing is they have been fine. Another bed has been weird also. It was planted to beans.. one end grew and the other looked like Frankenstein monsters. You would think if it was just the hay it would have shown up all over the bed... same if it was the horse manure. Running it through the shredder should have mixed it all through the stuff.

I am totally perplexed and have no idea what has happened at this point. Anyway, he is growing mustard... chopping it either with a weed eater or pulling it and running a lawn mower over it with a grass catcher. He doesn't have a heavy duty tiller for large gardens... just a 16" electric to do these beds. He had planned to go no-till and it was working well until this came up. The mustard if beautiful, though. Millie

Millie, that mirrors my experience, in the sense that the problem is quite sporadic. I mulched quite a bit of the garden, over a period of months, and only had two small spots come up with the problem. I suspect that some plants are more susceptible to this substance than are others, and, that the herbicide is not spread evenly through the hay or mulch. It still makes it so I won't use any of it in the garden, though. I don't want any of it in my garden. In fact, I wonder if any comes through the crops and gets into our systems?

Yes stuff like that kinda makes you mad. I got a bunch of fat lazy nutjobs that come around on JD tractors pulling tanks spraying weedkiller on the bar ditches. I have to tell them every year to keep that crap away from me.

I often wonder to how much goes through us. Its like the corn Monsanto bred that makes its own bug killer. Yeppers thats got to be just awesome for kidneys and liver knawing on an ear of that. And they wonder why cancers are spiraling out of control here in the US. Europe is smart and outlawed even importation of half the crap we grow here. Even China does not take certain types of corn.

Mexico has over 3000 different varieties of OP corn down there, blue, black, some with 2' ears and 15ft tall and Monsanto's terminator gene is showing up in some of it making it impossible to save seed. Make their corn sterile so you have to by seed from them every year. But DUH corn is wind pollinated that travels for miles and the gene has now contaminated bunches of peoples OP seed. You have to test now to be sure your clean if you sell seed. That right there threatens our entire biodiversity. But of course the corps they have huge seed banks and I guess they want a monopoly on life itself.

I used to have the very best old fashioned dark grey little wild honey bees that lived on the ridge behind me. Last summer I seen a sign on the side of the road offering a reward for honeybee locations wanting to come down here and steal ours now. I ran over the sign with my truck. It did not matter though, someone sold my little guys out and they are GONE this year. Now I got to go around with a paint brush.

They keep spraying these huge fields in Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa with pesticide and then wonder why their honeybee populations have collapsed. They call it Hive collapse disorder. HA-- the only disorder they have is in their freaking spray tanks.

Man, don't even get me started. Its disgusting trying to stay free of it all.

I didn't mulch, but my asparagus bed was sprayed full on by my new yard guy a few months ago. Y'all were very helpful with info. Thanks again! But after reading this, I'm afraid to only wait 1 year to try again. I'm trying to understand what it is you do with the mustard. So, you plant it, let it grow, let it absorb the poison, then pull it or dig it out and plant mustard again? Is that correct? How many times do you go through this ritual? Heck, I may just abandon the idea of another asparagus bed. That was the very best spot in my yard for it. It sounds as if edibles probably shouldn't be planted there ever again.

George, how can we know that it hasn't been used on things we buy in the store? I have decided I would rather eat anything that will grow for us rather then trust in things not grown organicly in the grocery. I absolutely hate this mess... the more I think about it the more I am convinced that we don't have a clue what we are being fed.

Nowyouseedum, what I was told here on this forum was to grow repeated rounds of mustard and till them in. The idea was to feed the soil microbes and help them take care of cleaning the soil. Dawn said to "chop and drop" which we are doing in one bed. We have some okra that seems to be okay, so will use the mustard greens for mulch and plant another round on each side to see which works best.

As for how many times, the person (dang, I wish I could remember his name) said that he recovered his garden in 4 months, but I suspect it may have to do with the level of contamination.

I hadn't ever heard the term "chop and drop."

Herbicide carryover can be very sporadic like that. It just depends on how heavy the concentration is in any given area and also on the plant. Some types of veggies, like tomatoes, beans and peas are very susceptible to it, while others aren't. It often is worse in animal manure than in hay because it ends up in a higher concentration in animal manure after the animal's digestive tract has done its thing...sort of condensing it.

George, I wonder if anyone has studied that? If it does, then we likely all have it in our systems unless we are strictly buying and eating organic grain and grain products 100% of the time. So, I had to look it up, and they say these herbicides are low risk to mammals. Notice, low risk, not no risk.

nowyousedum, Chop and drop is a term that means you cut down a cover crop, green manure crop or herbicide remediation crop and let it decompose in place. One way to speed up herbicide remediation is by increasing microbial activity in the soil, and chopping and dropping, allowing the crop to decompose right on top of the soil, does that. The more rounds of chop-and-drop material you can manage to achieve in one year, the greater the likelihood you'll clean up the soil more quickly. You can chop and drop the current crop (or rototill it into the soil, though that is not required) and seed another round right away. Bruce did that a couple of years ago when his soil became contaminated with herbicide.

Mustards are one plant that often are used to remove heavy metals from soil, like at EPA toxic cleanup sites or whatever. I never have researched them enough to know if they are absorbing the heavy metals (or the herbicides) and removing them from the soil or if they are increading microbial action and removing them via the microbes breaking down the heavy metals and/or herbicides.

Now that everyone here is more aware of the kinds of herbicide contamination wreaking havoc on gardeners across the USA (and in other nations as well), I'll add this: apparently these herbicides, if not well-binded to the soil they're in, can be picked up and carried by rain runoff, so that even a person who never has brought in a contaminated manure, compost of mulch might still find their plants suffering from herbicide carryover. How frightening is that? Every case is different as different types of soil and different soil pH affect how much these herbicides stay in one place or become more mobile. So, literally every person having trouble with herbicide carryover can find themself in a slightly different situation, depending on soil type and pH, than another person having the same problem.

Finally, remind me on Halloween and I'll tell y'all the scary story of a herbicide used on lawns that killed many, many trees and shrubs and such. Imagine being the homeowners who treated their yard for weeds (or paid lawn service companies to do it) and got persistent herbicide that killed most of the plants in their landscape except for the grass. The product, as far as I know, was banned by the EPA and lawsuits ensued as homeowners who lost trees of substantial sizes expected (rightfully so) to be compensated for the loss of valuable trees. As awful as it is to lose garden plants, imagine having the same thing happen only with trees.

The more I delve into this topic, the more I learn and the less I want to learn. It is horrifying how persistent many herbicides are, not just the specific group we've been discussing. Now, when farmers are doing their crop rotations, they have to know exactly what herbicides they used and when they applied them, and what rotation crops can be grown in those beds next, because so many herbicides are persisting that a lack of attention to detail can result in someone planting the wrong crop and having it die because of a herbicide they used the year before (and possibly longer) on the same acreage.

Ironically some of these herbicides were developed to be persistent because it meant they could be applied less often, which is considered environmentally friendly. Right? What if you could apply that herbicide once a year instead of twice a year or whatever? Isn't that more enviromentally friendly? It sounds great, except that same persistence that allows less frequent use of the herbicide kills innocent plants as we're all learning. Unintended consequences and all that.

Dawn

JerryDaniel, I won't add much to what Dawn has already said (No much to add ;)
But it's possible that the bees you loved died out on account of some of our new pests and parasites. No hive lives forever, no matter what. But there's a new pest, called the African Small Hive Beetle, which has been wreaking havoc on a lot of hives. It causes hives to abscond (leave) even when they have a large surplus of honey. It's the only way the bees can cope with this pest. I wouldn't mistreat a sign put out by someone looking for bees. Chances are they are doing a lot more good than harm.

I myself get numerous calls, every year, from people wanting me to recover wild hives and swarms. I can't even begin to do it all. But I bless those who take a special interest in this activity, as they generally help the bees live better and reproduce.

Those little gray bees may have been a form of Caucasian honey bee, noted for being docile. At any rate, hopefully another swarm will arrive and take up residence soon.

In regard to the possible effects of systemic herbicides, the topic gives me a headache. I think the best we can do is whatever we can to avoid these things. Then we have to let it go. The stress of worry might be worse than anything else.

I fully intend to do more "live mulch" with cowpeas this summer. In the winter I hope to sow Austrian Winter Peas, to produce my own mulch for next spring. My friend, Ron Cook, does this, and he reports that the winter peas produce a nitrogen rich mulch, fantastic for composting.

George, can you elaborate a little about Austrian winter peas? I have used them the last 2 years, but I have never had a big enough stand to use as mulch. Granted they were used on the "new" dirt, which wasn't in the best shape. I'm thinking I either planted too late or pulled them too early. Also, what variety of cowpeas will you use for living mulch?

I was thinking about chop and drop mustard though. I have some pac choi/Chinese cabbage growing in my asparagus bed that has put out a large volume of greens. I debated chop and drop there. I grow it for the chickens since I wasn't fond of the taste. I'm wondering if we can grow enough of SOMETHING in our gardens to provide our own mulch. It is one of the reasons I wanted comfrey, supposedly you can mulch with it. I think that is probably true. I'm thinking I should use one bed a year to grow mulch.

They sell cardboard "chips" for horse bedding. I use cedar flakes for mulch. If I have to bring in mulch, then these seem safer.

Amy, I haven't grown Austrian Winter Peas myself. But I know Ron plants them in late summer and says they get knee high by spring. He cuts them off at the ground and piles them up for use in compost, claiming they are extremely high in nitrogen.

I too have comfrey in the garden. I have hardly used it at all. It died out, in fact, when I had it on the far side, where things are drier and tend to get neglected. But I got a new start and put it on the entrance end, near the main water supply, and it's doing great now. I hear one can fertilize with chicken manure and that it goes wild, producing lots of nitrogen rich mulch material. I need to try it.

I'm sure the Chinese cabbage would work as well as mustard.

AmyinOwasso,

You can use any kind of Cowpeas they should all work the same. I also wonder if you couldn't use wheat or oats and weed eat or mow them down as a green crop. I don't know anything about this but I would think that anything that makes a lot of green foliage would work. On a Victory Garden or Growing a Greener World TV program a person on there was using vetch as a green crop and mowing and spreading it over their raised bed garden. Of coarse they were using it to improve their soil. Like I said before I don't know much about this subject, I'm just trying to help.

Yes, new start. I cleaned up the thread a little. Its out of hand and about your plant troubles not mine and we got sidetracked and maybe both a little offended. I am not dealing with beekeepers though, I wish I were. GLTY.

Authereray, most of the cowpeas I have right now were purchased with the idea of growing up a trellis. Seems like they would make a "living mulch" kind of wild, but, on the other hand if they crawled, sprawled instead of growing up maybe that would work. I have read about planting vetch under fall broccoli, with the idea that when the broccoli was done, the vetch would be there till spring, or maybe winterkill. Living mulch appeals to me, I don't know why. A crop to cut for mulch is another idea, and wheat or oats should work for that. I was thinking sorghum for a mulch crop. The Grow Biointensive people recommend 60% of your cultivated crops be crops for compost and mulch. It isn't practical, really, in my urban yard, but I could dedicate one of 11 vegetable beds to a "biomass" crop. Living mulch would save on the need for dry mulch.

George, I hate that you are dealing with the herbicide issue! I remember all too well the feeling of seeing my plants affected by it! The melted plastic plant look can be a little unsettling.

As always Dawn has done a very good job as far as advice!

I don't fully understand the science behind why the mustard seems to be one of the best when it comes to remediation. Our county extension horticulturist talked about it containing chemicals or elements that greatly increase the microbial activity.

In fact, one of my master gardener friends uses it to fumigate areas of her garden. Tomato beds as I recall, that were affected by some type of disease, maybe?

I'm trying to get back into beekeeping after about 40 yrs away from it! I'm hearing the introduction of Russian bees has caused premature swarming? I can't verify and I certainly won't claim any real knowledge.

Bruce

My DH liked to grow buckwheat as a cover crop and till that in. He would wait until it had some mature seed, so that tilling in would replant it. However it would not survive the winter in 6b for us, and sounds like the Austrian peas do most winters. I got the impression the wintering over allowed one to have their cake and eat it, too... so to speak. From what I found online it looks like it can be planted as late as end of October for us in the Southern half of 7b where I now live. Mother Earth News has an article about having salads all winter from the tendrils... and claims they taste like peas... hopefully English peas.

Yes, they do taste like English peas. They go well in stir fry, too.

I understand that mustard greens, and perhaps other cole crops chelate heavy metals and other harmful substances. That, I understand to mean that they access them and make them accessible to micro organisms which can break them down.

Amy, I've often grown cowpeas without support. The riotous mass of vines smothers whatever's underneath. Yet they still produce pretty well.

Bruce, the Russian bees were imported from a part of the former Soviet Union, which had over 100 years contact with Asian mites, such as varroa, yet no chemical intervention. So, they had 100 years head start on our bees, to overcome some of these very serious threats to honeybees. The first ones to be released here were very variable. I had one hive which behaved almost like African bees, but without the perseverance in chasing you. I requeened. I'm sure there is still a lot of variation, some of which is not so desirable. However, they are making it possible for feral bees to come back, and that's good. It's only a matter of time before their good genes are well mixed with other American strains and our honeybees will be better for it.

Every time this comes up I go searching for the article on mushroom remediation. At the end of this PDF article it mentions King Oyster mushrooms for the remediation of 2,4-D. (Someday I want to grow mushrooms). There is another article that I read about remediation around Chernobyl. I believe they used a "raft" of sunflowers to clean up some contaminated water there. Plants are amazing.

AmyinOwasso,

Sorghum, depending on the type of soil, can grow to a height 10 ft. or more. The good thing about it is you can mow it down when it gets 3-5 ft. tall and it will grow back again and with rain or moisture it is possible to get it might get 3 mowing's in a season depending on which zone it is grown in. It can make several inches of green manure cover for soil. I don't know about if it would pull metals out of the soil.

George, that's the first positive comment I've heard about the Russian bees. Given that perspective, I can see how it could have a positive impact on our feral bees!

While I don't want more than a couple of hives for pollination, I'm always interested in learning.

I had a conversation with our base commander several years ago. After finding out how many years experience I had with a certain weapon system, he observed that I must know everything there is to know about the old bird. I replied, No Sir! I learn something new everyday. I went on to explain my philosophy is, when I quit learning, someone better check for a pulse!

Bruce, I know the feeling. If someone asks me if I am an expert gardener or beekeeper I tend to hesitate. That's because the more I know, the more conscious I am of what I don't know. So, "gardener" or "beekeeper" are adequate terms for me. But the one thing I do know, is that in both of those areas, I thoroughly relax when I am doing them.

Auther, thank you so much for mentioning sorghum! I have some seed and should try planting it!

Macmex,

I'm glad to be of help. But like I told AmyinOwasso I don't know if it would do the same as mustard but it would make a whole lot of green manure when it is mowed and I don't think that would hurt. I don't know if you have heard that a lot of weeds have become resistant to herbicides and the farmers keep changing to new ones to try and compensate so there is no telling what kind of herbicide you are dealing with. Good luck!

I've been making a round in the main garden, in the evening, even if I might not get to work in it on a given day, due to other responsibilities. My tomatoes have been looking very very good, except the ones which had suffered herbicide damage.

Last night I was aghast to see that most of my other tomatoes were starting to show herbicide damage. Perhaps it isn't that the herbicide dispersal is sporadic, but rather that it sometimes takes longer to get to their roots! I spent until well after bedtime raking and removing ALL mulch from my 8 Baker Family Heirloom plants, which all had "twisty tops." Today, after work, I'll try to get the mulch from another 20 plants. I had left the mulch, since there had been no damage, other around Black (tomato) and one other spot in the garden.

One of the problems with herbicide resistance is that now some companies put two or more of these pyridine herbicides in one product to try to ensure that if the weeds are resistant to one product then maybe the other one will kill them, so then you're dealing with two or more persistent herbicides instead of one. It is maddening.

I am sorry, George, to hear that the issue now appears to be more widespread than it was originally. I recently learned that these persistent herbicides sometimes can travel in rain runoff, which is something I never knew before. So, someone could be affected by these herbicides if they get rain runoff from an adjacent property like we do at our house. That is even more scary because even if you bring in no outside hay, straw, manure or compost, you still could get this through moving water. Thankfully, the neighbors next door do not use these herbicides on their pastures. I can tell that at a glance because their pastures are full of lovely wildflowers.

Good news, tomato plants can recover from 2-4D (Grazon) damage. It's taken a while. Guess my procrastination has worked out for the better. I did yank a couple of my Baker Family Heirloom plants because they looked so horrible. But I started out leaving Black (tomato) just to see what would happen. Then, I decided it wasn't worth the space, and that I should yank them. But,... I never got around to it.

Last week I noticed that they were starting to grow more normally. Through it all, they had even set some fruit. Over in Green Country Seed Savers' website we have a contributer who informed me that they can outgrow the problem. I just missed his post until today. (Posts tend to get covered up.)

I did transplant a volunteer, from where Baker Family Heirloom had been, to one of the vacated spots. Yesterday Jerreth and I also made some tomato cuttings and filmed the process for Homesteading Edu.

Here's a picture of one of the recovering plants.

That's good news, George!

George, That's terrific! I remember that Bruce said some of his plants survived and went on to produce. This must mean your plants didn't get a major dose of the herbicide so maybe your soil will be clean by next year.

Dawn

I'm learning a whole lot about this problem, taking notes, videos and pictures. Since becoming aware of it, I realized that I killed half our pomegranate bush, a 6' hybrid oak (which I'd raised from 5") and nearly killed a 15' apple tree, all because I either dug in some of last year's manure and barn scrapings or top dressed with them!

I have a couple tomato plants which do not show signs of improvement, and I've noticed that there's still a thin residue of manure/mulch from what I put down. Until I get down there and SCRAPE every last bit of it away, those plants will probably languish!

On the other hand, I planted my Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkins and watermelons in beds of the stuff. While lambs quarters, growing in those beds shows cupped/twisted leaves, the vine crops don't seem to mind it at all. This tells me that wherever I've had serious contamination I'd do well to plant corn and vine crops in that spot, at least in the coming year. Though, if my tomatoes have recovered, it will probably be okay to plant anything in that spot, by next spring. Tomatoes are the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to 2-4D (Grazon).

I don't know if it affects beans. None of my beans have had the problem. But then, I didn't mulch them before I figured out what was happening. I don't have the heart to experiment.

One more reason to love OTCP. Sorry to hear about all the damages to the other growies!

George, Herbicide carryover does affect beans (peas as well) just about as badly as it affects tomatoes. That's why the University of Washington bioassay test for herbicide carryover recommends the testing be done with legumes, though I think a second reason is that they grow and sprout quickly so you can get an idea if there is herbicide carryoever issue in just a couple of weeks. Stunting, swollen stems and epinasty all are symptoms you'll see in affected bush bean plants. These broadleaf weed killers should not affect any grain crops since they are meant specifically to be used on grains, so I think corn always would be a great crop to put in an area affected by this type of herbicide carryover. It is interesting that they are not affecting your OTCP (C. moschata) because I've seen fields of C. pepos affected by them. Maybe in the case of the squash, it might take a higher dosage of carryover. Or, possibly the C. moschatas just outgrow the damage in a way the C. pepos cannot due to the way they grow. In my garden, C. moschatas outgrow everything else Mother Nature throws at them so it wouldn't surprise me if they can outgrow this sort of herbicide carryover.

I have noticed that herbicide drift, when it occurs, tends to only hit the tomatoes and sometimes the catnip at a high enough concentration to cause damage. Everything else, whether veggie, herbs or flowers, don't seem to get enough drift to harm them.

Dawn

Macmex, How is your garden doing now that it has had time to either out grow the herbicide poisoning or die?

George I'm having a few plants that this week started looking like that. I'm leaning more towards drift from a neighbor spraying to the south of me. I say this because the wheat straw I have used is at least 8 years old. In fact a lot of it is degraded. I have used it previously when it was fresher and never an issue. Then I mulched several plants and only a few show any signs and on some it is just one side(the south side) that shows any. I feel if it was due to the mulch the whole plant would be showing it. Mine isn't as bad as yours and I'm going to leave them as I feel they will overcome it. Again I could be wrong. i had a very similar look when I over fertilzed the plants early on. Time will tell.

I spent some more time in the garden yesterday afternoon. It is drift for sure. His Dad and FIL both farm. He is an alcoholic. I'm sure he got some of the powerful high volatile chemical from one of them and no telling how strong he mixed it. I'm at least 50 yds away. With the heat yesterday afternoon and the SW wind it was strong drifting across my garden. I'm still considering what to do. That is why I'm very selective what I use around my place. Usually only Round up as it is a contact spray and only kills what it contacts. 2,4-D and others especially if you don't use the low volatile will vaporize and drift and the vapors will kill things over a mile away. I guess I don't understand those who have no respect for their neighbors.

Jay, I'm sorry to hear that drift has hit your plants. It is frustrating that other folks are not careful with their use of chemicals. I only got hit twice this year, and most everything recovered. I think that only two tomato plants did not. For here, that's not a bad year (so far). It helps that we have heavy woodland to our north, west and south so we only ever get drift from the east or part of the southeast.

You know, it is bad enough that we have Round-up Ready Crops and the huge usage of glyphosate that accompanies them, but now there's similar dicamba-tolerant crops, called Xtend that tolerate a new formulation of dicamba. I've been following that development carefully. All I can think about when I read about stuff like this is that now there's another herbicide that will volatize and drift and get our garden plants, and that there now will appear, eventually, dicamba-tolerant weeds just like we now have glyphosate-tolerant weeds. I worry that eventually it will become impossible for home gardeners and organic farmers to grow anything because the widespread usage of herbicides will just kill our plants. There's also a huge issue with farmers using the older (cheaper) form of dicamba, a violation of the label, with their new dicamba-tolerant crops instead of the newer formulation, which is a huge no-no because the older form volatizes and drifts much more easily. I saw a report about a week ago about all the dicamba violation issues being reported in various states (I don't think there were any yet in OK or KS) and there were huge numbers of cases under investigation.

I feel pretty fortunate that no one actually farms close enough to me for any kind of GMO herbicide-tolerant crop to be an issue, so all I have to worry about is ranchers spraying their pastures and fencelines for broadleaf weeds, or utility, railroad or utility workers doing the same. That means our likeliest time for herbicide drift here mainly is in the April-May timeframe. By June it is hot and I guess no one is as concerned about weeds by then, as they're usually already cutting hay and stuff and are beyond the herbicide stage by then.

Where does it end? There's already been people on the OK garden-related facebook pages the last couple of years saying that they no longer even grow tomato plants because they got tired of losing them to drift every single year. I assume they are close enough to commercial farms that they've given up hope of being drift-free.

Dawn

Dawn unless he sprays again I feel most will be ok. It was mainly the tops and the south side of the plants. That is why I ruled out mulch. I felt from the start it wasn't but waited until I studied it more. And his weeds is dieing and the odor is strong at my fenceline. I was afraid he sprayed again after the rain but now feel he just applied it too strong. I have way more fruit set that I thought just a few days ago. I had to have some during the last of the heat.

Knock on wood being that I haven't had any disease issues starting about 2-3 weeks ago when I wasn't seeing any fruit set I started going out at least twice a day when the temps were cooler and would used my hands and brush all of the blooms I saw and also gave those in cages a little shaking. I feel this might of helped. I have heard that it works. Some say to use the back of your hand. Regardless I'm seeing a lot of fruit set now.

Have you ever grown Grandma Suzy's?. I have at least once but it was in the drought. I have two plants this year. The first one I put out is getting a fair amount of fruit set. Both plants appear to me to almost be det although the listing I've seen says Indet. So was curious what you saw. Maybe the heat and wind had an effect. Looks like they will be large fruits.

Just got another inch and it looks like we will get more. Flooding around us. What a change a week makes.

I am, and have in the past, grown Grandma Suzy's Beefsteak (same one?). Mine have been indeterminate, but maybe smaller than some of the others. Production is excellent this year, though wasn't that great the first 2 years. I liked the flavor enough to keep trying. It makes large fruit, the size of my hand. Red or dark pink.

Both of these plants are loaded with blooms. More of a squatty plant. I have them in cages but look like good plants for sprawlers. As their branches tend to go out and not up. I have plants that are 5' tall and theses are 3" or less. If something don't happen before the fruit ripens I should have a good harvest. Burrells Special is listed as a Indet and it has the same growth pattern. Looking forward to tasting them.

They're not a "pretty" plant, yes, kind of a sprawler. Really bad leaf curl, even when everything else is happy. Every year I think, maybe I won't grow it next year, and then I taste one. I just really like their flavor. I was canning last night, I recognize these pretty easily, and Arkansas Traveler. But I have a number of reds, Early Girl, Jetstar, Defiant, Sioux and Super Sioux. One of them is putting out very sweet tomatoes, which surprised me. I don't think it's the hybrids, so that leaves Sioux or Super Sioux. I'm going to have to mark them and figure it out. I'm partial to sweet tomatoes.

Jay, I haven't grown Grandma Suzy's, but it appears that Amy has!

What an incredible difference a week has made for y'all out there. I hope you're enjoying every minute of it. It is a relief to get great rainfall but without the flooding.

Perhaps Grandma Suzy's is a compact indeterminate.

Amy, To me, Sioux is better than Super Sioux, tastewise, and I'd describe their flavor more as acidic and tangy than sweet, though there can be an underlying hint of sweetness. All of our taste buds, however, are as different as we are, genetically, so we all perceive flavor differently. I do confess to being partial to sweet tomatoes too, and to me, I believe that every big, pink tomato I've ever grown has had the sweetness I love. Maybe that's why I grow so mamy big pinks.

Based on your listed tomato varieties and on my tastebuds, I'd say that if I were tasting a really sweet tomato from that list, it would have been produced by the JetStar plant. YMMV. I haven't grown Defiant so cannot comment on its flavor.

Dawn

Defiant is super disease resistant, and not bad tasting, along the lines of Early Girl, but not as prolific. It could be Jetstar, I guess. I didn't label any of those this year because I grew them last year. Have to mark one. I thought the Sioux's would be more acidic, too.

I got Grandma Suzy's Beefsteak from Gary at Duck Creek at a seed swap. I don't know how to describe it, sweet, rich, meaty, thin skinned? It's just a step above other tomatoes to me. I love Cherokee Purple, and this has a similar size and texture, but the flavor is distinctly different. Planting early this year made a big difference in production...that and not being drowned by spring rains like 2015 and 2016.