In Santa Rosa, Calif., the folks at Grab n’ Grow have been making compost and planting mixes for 25 years, using organic materials generated in Sonoma County. In 2002, the company detected residues of a potent herbicide called clopyralid in a batch of compost. The next year, Grab n’ Grow manager Don Liepold and his wife saw the herbicide’s trail of destruction in their raised bed organic garden — lettuce that refused to grow, curled and wilted peas, and stunted, gnarled tomato leaves. 

As we reported in July 2009, clopyralid and its close cousin, aminopyralid, easily persist, sometimes for YEARS!, in hay, manure and compost. When contaminated materials are used in food gardens, tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops develop curled foliage that looks like a disease, if they grow at all.

Both herbicides are manufactured by DowAgrosciences, which seems to have no moral or ethical problem selling products which clearly are polluting the public compost stream. Meanwhile, aminopyralid pesticides have been pulled from shelves in the United Kingdom. Liepold, the Rachel Carson Council and MOTHER EARTH NEWS think the U.S. EPA should take the same action here.

“I have been testing  and detecting herbicide residues and thus rejecting cow manure, horse manure, turkey mulch, rice hulls, mushroom compost and yard trimmings,” says Grab n’ Grow manager Don Liepold. “I spent $20,000 in lab fees in 2008, and am on the same track for 2009,” he says.

It is extremely difficult to keep contaminated materials out of commercial compost. “One load of contaminated grass clipplings can ruin a batch of compost,” says Eric Philip of Anatek Labs in Moscow, Idaho. Philip has seen so many positive tests for clopyralid residues in compost that he would not use untested compost in his own garden.

“When folks have plants die in their home gardens, their first assumption is that they did something wrong,” Philip says. But with pyralid-laced commercial compost becoming more common, contaminated soil amendments are often to blame.

The source of pyralid pollution can be impossible to trace. For example, a horse stable may use hay brought in from a neighboring state, without knowing that it is laced with pyralid herbicides. If the horse’s manure or stable litter ends up in a garden, disaster is ready to strike. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Liepold stopped making one of Grab n’ Grow’s most popular products, Mango Mulch, for more than a year because he could not find an uncontaminated manure supply. Now he’s getting it from two local organic dairies.

Testing for contamination is a slow, painstaking process that comes at a steep price of $350 (or more) per sample, so most commercially-made compost is not tested. 

Both of these herbicides were approved by the EPA before their persistence in compost was known, and before lab tests existed that could detect residues at damaging levels.  We think approval of these pesticides should be revoked before the damage gets worse.

To express your concern about this hidden danger to your garden, write to your senators and congressional representatives to make your voice heard. You can also contact Rick Keigwin, director of the EPA’s pesticide review division.

See our earlier report: Milestone Herbicide Creates Killer Compost for lots more background on this issue.

 

This pea plant shows the cupped leaves that indicate the soil contains damaging levels of a potent herbicide.

Last fall, our report on manure, hay and compost contaminated with Milestone herbicide (aka aminopyralid), made by Dow AgroSciences) told of 2008’s tragic summer in the United Kingdom, where thousands of gardeners lost their tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops to manure and hay laced with this potent, highly persistent herbicide. This year the problem has hit home, with U.S. gardeners, organic farmers and commercial growers reporting damaged or lost tomato crops from Milestone contamination. (Aminopyralid is also sold under the brand name of Forefront.)

Why now? “We had the perfect storm to set up the situation,” says Dr. Jeanine Davis, associate professor of horticulture at North Carolina State University and author of several recent extension service advisories about Milestone’s persistent toxicity. The drought caused animal owners to buy hay trucked in from other areas, and at the same time many people created new vegetable gardens and bought contaminated compost, or hay to use as mulch.”

Davis is now receiving notices daily from growers and extension agents across the country who are seeing vegetables damaged by manure, hay or compost contaminated with Milestone. Tomatoes are highly sensitive; symptoms including curled, cupped leaves and wilting new growth are often misdiagnosed as a virus or disease problem.

Organic growers who have lost their crops suffer a double punch because they lose certification on the contaminated land. Recovery can take a long time. In a former North Carolina hay field treated with Milestone (one of several aminopyralid products) in June 2006, residue levels were high enough to damage tomatoes in 2009 — three years later.

All of this leaves Dow Chemical holding a bag of trouble, but maybe it won’t be so bad since the company reportedly has bought web rights to www.banaminopyralid.com. Is that smart damage control, or what? And business looks good judging from the number of U.S. highway departments, foresters, utility companies, and other big land managers that are buying the stuff by the ton. You tell me: When a deer grazes on treated vegetation in the power cut behind my house and relieves herself as she passes through my garden, who’s responsible for the fact that some of my soil is now useless for growing  beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes and many other crops for four years — or more. Do we really want to allow companies to make their profits by selling chemicals that are this potent?

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, Milestone/aminopyralid has been pulled from the market pending further study. Damage reports continue to mount as the extent of the problem becomes known.

This entire problem is a repeat of damage that surfaced several years ago in the United States from another persistent Dow herbicide, clopyralid (sold as Reclaim, Stinger, Hornet, Transline, Confront, Lontrel, Curtail and Millenium Ultra). Dow was marketing clopyralid for broadleaf weed control on residential lawns, which meant it was contaminating grass clippings used to make municipal composts. Researchers eventually traced mysterious damage in gardens across the United States to the herbicide residues in composts. 

Why is this happening all over again?! These poisons are so powerful that they can persist for years, and they can damage sensitive crops at levels as low as 10 parts per billion, according to an Ohio State University factsheet. In some cases the lab tests needed to detect them at those levels had not even been developed.

It is absurd that the EPA is allowing these chemicals on the market. The herbicide labels warn about these dangers, but there is simply no way that any farmer selling contaminated hay (or giving away manure) is going to label it, so that consumers will know that it is toxic. It’s time for us to demand that the EPA take immediate action to protect us from these poisons. The Rachel Carson Council has taken the lead, writing to the EPA last fall to urge them to protect our gardens from Milestone herbicide toxicity. To join them, call or e-mail Kathryn Montague (703-305-1243; montague.kathryn@epa.gov).

In addition to complaining to the EPA, we urge you to report problems to your local and state extension offices (and to local news media so they can warn gardeners), and to post comments below to help us monitor this problem. Lab testing to confirm contamination is expensive, but there is a simple test you can run at home to help determine if your growing medium is or is not safe for growing crops.

When it comes to small livestock, I'd rather be a worm wrangler than a beekeeper any day. Especially if it’s a hot Georgia day. I used to gear up in canvas overalls, elbow-length leather gloves, a safari hat and a veil before tending the wooden supers heavy with honey and beeswax. The most effort I’ll expend for worms on any day is to tote a bowl of peach peelings to them in summer or spread leaves for a winter blanket. No heavy lifting. No armor required.

Oh, I know that our farm crops depend on bees. In fact I became a beekeeper because I wanted to do my part for these dwindling pollinators. But after three fretful years, I was relieved to see my hives go down the driveway with a family of homeschoolers.

It was good riddance to the jittery little drug addicts who had to stay on a diet of antibiotics and other chemicals to fend off mites, hive beetles, wax moths and other pests. My red wigglers, on the other hand, not only stay healthy without meds but they also recycle my kitchen garbage and waste paper into sweet black compost for my garden.

Bees are prima donnas. They require expensive houses, all exactly alike. Worms make themselves at home in discarded bureau drawers, old bathtubs or gas barbeque grills with the burners removed. Mine used to live in a plastic storage bin that cost less than $4. Today they just camp out in the garden.

Bees, who enjoy a reputation for community spirit, definitely have limits to their hospitality. If they get too crowded, about half of them will turn a commoner into a queen and swarm off to start a new colony. Worms? They congenially make room for one more ... or a thousand more. They know how to share, whether it's a piece of watermelon rind or their entire home.

Bees are delicate. They die if they get too cold or too hot. Worms, on the other hand, are flexible. I found out just how flexible when I gave them siftings from some homeground cornmeal. Thinking it would be comfy bedding, I poured about five pounds into their plastic condo. A few mornings later I removed the cover to find hundreds of worms clinging to the top four inches of the bin, lifting their tails (or maybe it was their heads) out of the bedding. The ground corn had heated their home into a working compost pile.

Since it was a cold winter morning, I opened the kitchen door and flung the box outside to cool. I hurried off to work and forgot about them until Saturday, another unusually cold morning. I removed their cover and peeked in, not knowing whether to expect dead frozen worms or dead steamed worms. I found the perimeter of the bedding was frozen while the middle still generated enough heat to create steam in the morning air. To my surprise, layered between the two extremes was a solid four-inch band of more or less temperate worms — a fine model for making the best of whatever life hands you.

Now don't get me wrong, I know we need more bees. I just prefer to support them by purchasing honey from one of our local beekeepers. Whatever they charge at our farmers market this year will be worth the price.

While I’m happy to leave beekeeping to the experts and just keep on wrangling worms, both of these smart enterprises have benefited from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE ) grants. In Florida, SARE funded a team from Agricultural Research Services and the University of Florida to work on non-chemical controls for the small hive beetle. Cooperating with half a dozen local beekeepers, they came up with a low-tech, low-cost trap that lures the beetles into conical holes drilled in a board. They go in and can’t get back out.

In Virginia, two recently funded producer projects are working with bees and worms, respectively. A project led by the Prince William Regional Beekeepers Association is evaluating the potential of producing local queens and nucleus colonies as a way to address the colony collapse disorder that is devastating honeybee populations.

Mark Jones of Sharondale Farm in Keswick, Va., is experimenting with growing gourmet mushrooms outdoors in livestock manure and then using worms to convert the spent mushroom bedding into a high value soil amendment that he can use or sell. If his research idea is successful, it will open up a host of low-input possibilities for market gardeners.

You can keep up with SARE research by reading annual reports from these or similar projects at the SARE database.

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During my early years of worm wrangling, I followed the
conventional advice of keeping them in a double set of
containers so that I could collect the vermicompost tea
to use in my garden. This was labor-intensive and required
a lot of lifting. My worms multiplied so quickly that I
eventually had a dozen sets of the plastic bins.

I cut out much of the lifting by moving the bins directly
to the garden so that the sieved bottoms could drip right
onto the garden row. When I discovered that my worms
could thrive in the soil year-round, I set them free.

Now I practice windrow composting, so that my fallow
rows serve as worm hostels. In this photo, the row in
the foreground is not empty; it is teeming with worms
busily composting kitchen scraps, leaves and an
occasional bucket of horse manure.

Adding compost is the single best thing you can do to make your garden grow better, and you can make compost from leaves, grass clippings and kitchen scraps. This video from Farmer's Almanac TV shows how easy it is to make your own compost bins, using either welded wire fencing, or discarded wooden pallets. Thirty minutes and less than $30 — truly supereasy compost bin plans!

VIDEO: Home ECOnomics: Composting 

Want to learn even more about composting? We've compiled some of our very best how to compost articles here: Compost and Fertile Soil Building.

P.S. Got more tips on easy compost bin plans, or reports on how well compost has worked in your garden? Please share your stories in the comments section below.