"Gopher" wrote
I'm sorry if this subject has already been addressed but I was told
yesterday evening at a Flower Show meeting that havoc has been wreaked
among a number of the growers (esp. of vegetables) whose crops have been
ruined.

I was just about to place an order with one of our friendly local farmers
when I heard that "his" manure was probably responsible for the problem
here in local NW Dorset.

See link:

http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-d...inopyralid-in-
manure/

Has anyone experienced this problem? It seems that this surfaced in
2007/8. Originally mention was made of duration in the soil of "a number
of years" but nothing more specific has been suggested, other than Dow
Chemicals reference to 6 months which seems optimistic in the extreme.

About 18 months ago we had a huge lot of (cow?) manure dumped on our
allotment site, grab lorry hoisted it over the fence, and a number of
gardeners used it despite my warnings to test it first. (Just plant a couple
of young tomato plants in it and wait) Despite it being over 6 months before
being used by some they all suffered loss of potato and tomato crops
especially, deformed strange looking plants. Brassicas seemed not to be
bothered too much. Recently I have noticed others have started to use the
contaminated manure as they feel the chemical will have leached out by now,
with no rain this year?
We buy our manure from a stables/farm that let it rot for over 12 months and
have used them for years, £12. per trailer load delivered, but other plot
holders seem to object to paying for good manure of known quality that you
can use immediately.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK