herbicide damage of tomato plants

[macmex]

Folks, 
    Here's a heads up about a REAL possible problem for those who use compost and/or mulch derived from products of hay fields! I've been mulching my garden and one of my tomato varieties went haywire right after I mulched! I'm going to paste a link from the Oklahoma Gardening Forum, where I went to ask for advice.


forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4672383/severe-deformation-of-tomato-foliage?n=4


Here's a picture of the tomato foliage:

[heavyhitterokra]

George,

I lost over 200 tomato plants a few years ago from a very similar situation. All my seedlings were doing great in my Jiffy pots until I transplanted them into some topsoil that I bought from Atwoods. Within days, all the transplants that were potted using that brand of topsoil started showing white stripes on the leaves and were dead within two weeks. I sent the plants to be tested at a University lab where they told me "Glyphosate" had killed my plants. I sent soil samples to the USDA, and the ODAFF, to report the batch of topsoil and try to track its origins. The company that sold the topsoil to Atwoods had used weed killer on their stockpile of dirt a few weeks prior to digging it with a front loader and dumping it in the bagging hopper.

They ended up refunding all my money for a whole truckload of topsoil I had purchased and used to fill in a washed out spot, but wouldn't do anything about the loss of my plants. Nowadays, Glyphosate use is so widespread that I don't think anyone is safe using mulch or topsoil from any unknown source without chancing damage to their home garden crops.

The only reason I was growing tomatoes from seed in the first place was that I had planted tomatoes purchased from Walmart the previous year that were contaminated with late season blight. Carelessness among commercial supliers has cost me dearly over the past decade.

[macmex]

Wow, well, I'm certainly going to be a lot more careful in the future.

[Deleted]

guess it's a great idea that i read this..on account there's a hay field behind where i live.in which they use some type of insecticide to kill the insects..and as for as top soil goes.the rent home i live in.sets on 75 acres.so i have plenty of area to get good top soil.instead of else where..

[john]

George What a shame! I mulch my tomatoes with hay every year, I never even thought about the possibility of this happening. I have heard about it happening with compost. (which is a common occurrence if the compost is made from leaf and grass clippings from treated lawns.) George if it doesn't kill your plants outright, they will eventually outgrow it. As long as they are not getting exposed to more. The plants need time and the more growth you can encourage the better.
Ron are you sure about the glyphosate being responsible for killing the plants. I have never heard or seen glyphosate act in that way. Usually it has to be absorbed through the leaves. I have read that it is inert in the soil because it quickly binds to the organic matter in the soil and will not be taken up by the plant. I usually associate the kind of problem George is having with Broadleaf weed killers (like 2-4d) that are used in lawns, and fields. They used to use it in cornfields as the number one herbicide (the good old days) but now glyphosate is the herbicide they use because of the round up ready corn everyone grows. Some plants are much more sensitive to the broadldeaf weed killers and they will absorb it easily, even as a gas! I used to have to treat the lawns at this place I take care of to eradicate the clover and ground ivy in the lawns. Well one year it nearly killed the grapes and wisteria. The roses didn't seem to mind. The grapes and the wisteria eventually outgrew it. It took about one growing season to do it, the plants leafed out normally the next year. George I hope your plants recover for you and that you have removed most of the herbicide from your garden by removing the hay mulch. You could root some suckers off your tomatoes and plant them in a new location as insurance. (in case they don't recover)
I am very frustrated for you. I know you do your very best to provide clean healthy food for your family, it just goes to show how hard this sort of thing is to escape. It is everywhere. What more can you do?

[macmex]

John, thank you for the insights! It's so good to be able to hear from others with more experience with this problem. Somehow I missed your reply till now, though I check in on this website a couple of times a day. Yes! Just in the last couple of days I've noticed that the first tomato plant to be hit are now recovering. I had decided to yank them, but then I got busy....

I'm glad I didn't. It seems that when they do recover they recover fairly rapidly. Here's a picture of one of the recovering plants.


Yesterday I did take some tomato cuttings, just in case. I also followed one of the videos you posted, and did some more mulberry cuttings. We video taped the process for Homesteading Edu. Lord willing, we'll be over run with little mulberry trees!

George

[heavyhitterokra]

John,

It could have been broadleaf weed killer that killed my tomatoes? It's been too many years ago. The University's test said weed killer in the soil. Maybe I assumed it was glyphosate? It caused white streaks to grow up the length of the seedling transplants and killed them before planting time. They were dead by the time they were a foot tall. I only lost the flats that were planted in Atwood's brand of topsoil.

We also found broken glass, clumps of what smelled like used motor oil, and mostly just dirty sand and tree bark in the bags of what they called "Topsoil", almost like they were coming from an old oil well clean-up site or landfill. (Imagine salvage yard and car crushers). It was a very low-quality product.

I used to work at Clean America Corporation, where they'd treat oil field contaminated soil from Texas, and Louisiana, by running it through a twin screw, steaming process that resembled side by side grain augers fitted with jets of steam.

The vapor that cooked off in the steaming process would be distilled into stainless steel containers and was highly volatile.

The dirty sandy soil that came out the other end was put into two-ton plasticized canvas forklift totes and loaded onto a train to go to a disposal site. The stuff inside those totes smelled just like the stuff in the contaminated topsoil bags. (Steamed oil field residue).

Now, I only buy higher priced brands of topsoil and cut a few bags open with a razor knife to check for dirty sand before I let them load the truck.

[heavyhitterokra]

George,

The cardboard mulch you used should be comparable to hay mulch by virtue of the carbon left through the process of decomposition. If you add green, leafy matter (no grass seeds) over that as well as a smattering of (well seasoned) chicken litter, you will create a percolator effect of nutrients when it rains. (If it's gentle rain). The rains we've had lately would float your compost away.

I cut the tops out of weeds before they go to seed or use weeds I've pulled from the garden before they go to seed. (Topsoil still attached, root side up). The soil attached to the rootball provides needed enzymes to break down the green weeds buried below. The chicken litter used in moderation provides bacteria to help in the process of decomposition, as well as providing other minerals, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc.

As an example of this: Josh and I found some old canvas welding blinds in a dump and used them to roll topsoil for the enzymes needed to break down green vegetation, green leafy matter, a smattering of chicken litter to provide the needed bacteria, as well as potassium, magnesium, nitrogen, etc., and some wheat straw hay to provide the carbon. We sprinkled pelletized lime over it to counter the acid produced by decomposition. We rolled all this into a giant, canvas 'burrito' in an attempt to mimic the digestive tract of a cow. It weighed about half a ton or more. We laid it on top of a sheet of clear plastic from an old hoop house and sprinkled it with water every few days then covered it with plastic. The canvas was used to block out the light.

The hot, July sun would cook it pretty hot, so we added water almost daily. By the end of Summer, it was completely digested but had no bad smell (We don't know how cows do that) we did our best.

We used the resulting digested matter as an amendment to our pawpaw tree experiment. After 5 years, the pawpaw tree used in the experiment is about 18' feet tall, while the pawpaws not amended are only about as tall as a man.