neighbor spraying roundup in the wind.

[WTA]

I was in my shop working this morning and my eyes started burning so I went outside to see what was going on and I saw my neighbor about 400 yards away out spraying on his tractor. He's spraying roundup a day after he went over his field with the tiller which makes no sense to me at all. Those plants are already dead and tilled in and roundup has very little if any residual effect and I've never heard of it being able to kill weed seeds in the ground.

Anyway, The wind is blowing about 20 mph in straight line from him to my alfalfa and bermuda fields and where I was in the shop. Judging by the smell in the air he's mixed it pretty strong.

My question is do I need to worry about my crops? I called him as soon as I noticed the smell in the air and he stopped but he had already done 3 acres worth of spraying. I've never used roundup myself and I don't know how bad that stuff can be when drifting on the wind. All I know is my eyes are watering still. How long does that stuff take before I should notice any damage it might have caused? I'm half tempted to go cut my alfalfa right now just in case but I just irrigated it. The whole field is a mud hole right now and there really isn't any way I can pull the haybine through it yet.

I really hope he hasn't done any damage over here. Both of us have been totally wiped out by the crop dusters around here twice now and he is the lawyer that made them stay away finaly. We're pretty much a no fly zone now thanks to him. If I lose my hay fields though I'm screwed. You all know how it is for us small farms this year with the fuel and fertilizer prices taking such a big chunk out already.

 

[DocHeb]

400 yards and you could smell it?? You're in trouble. If affected, the wilting will start in 48-72 hours

 

[WTA]

That's what I was afraid of. I'm still smelling it. I guess there is nothing I can do now other than wait and see what happens. 400 yards really is nothing for wind drift around here. The land is flat as can be and this 20 MPH wind is actually mild for us. Last week during a storm we had gusts over 100 mph that shook the house. 40-60 mph wind is almost a certainty this time of year even when there isn't a cloud in the sky.

Well, I guess I better go call my insurance agent and see what he says to do. I know I'm not covered but he can probably tell me what to do if we are killed out again.

 

[Jimbrown]

Pretty sure it won't hurt bermuda just kill the weeds. Don't know about alphalfa maybe i'm thinkin it will stunt it for sure, but any leafy plant or evergreen is probably in danger.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I know that your fields are already wet, but you can water them and wash the stuff off before it's too late. It says right on the label to spray when there's no chance of rain for 24 hours.

As far as health effects, if it burned your eyes, I would check with a medical professional asap.

 

[WTA]

I just called my wife at work about that. She's a doctor but not the right kind of doc. She's asking the right kind about roundup to see if I need to go in. I doubt I will have to.

I should have kept my respirator on I guess. I was sandblasting here in the shop and even though I have a blast cabinet with a dust collector outside I still wear a good respirator.

I had my son turn the sprinkler on again in the Alfalfa. I'll have him go move it about every two hours untill we cover the field again.

I know with 24D that doesn't work. Even at the very low concentrations of it that I use on my bermuda it still kills broadleafs fast. I can even spray it in the rain and it works.

 

[Unclebuck257]

It depends on which Roundup he was using. One works even if it rains within one hour after application, I believe. I'm going to bet that if he mixed it as strong as you've indicated and was using the kind I'm talking about, you will have some crop damage. How much remains to be seen. Please let us know what happens.

 

[WTA]

It was the name brand happy homeowner stuff in the small bottles that he got from the local feedstore. I'm sure the concentration wasn't much per bottle but he did use a lot of it.

I told him a couple of times that he is always welcome to come get my big sprayer any time he wants. It's twice the width of his rig and it has big nozzles on it that are a lot less prone to wind drift and also you can go about 10 mph the way I have it set up. He was only going about 1.5 mph.

 

[RonL]

I do not believe Roundup is species specific, I believe it kills plants across the board.
Why the h*** would someone spray roundup on tilled soil? Has he ever had an IQ test? That is totally beyond the pale!

RonL

 

[Unclebuck257]

It was the name brand happy homeowner stuff in the small bottles that he got from the local feedstore. I'm sure the concentration wasn't much per bottle but he did use a lot of it.

I told him a couple of times that he is always welcome to come get my big sprayer any time he wants. It's twice the width of his rig and it has big nozzles on it that are a lot less prone to wind drift and also you can go about 10 mph the way I have it set up. He was only going about 1.5 mph.

If you walk into ANY store that sells Roundup in those "Concentrate" bottles, I believe its the color of the label on the plastic bottle that determines which Roundup it is, regarding time before rain will affect it. It therefore wouldn't matter whether it was a small bottle or not, but rather the type of Roundup it was in that bottle as to whether rain ( or your spraying water) would affect it within a certain time period. Why not just ask this idiot which Roundup he used and ask to see the bottles to be sure? By now though, since this thread started, you should begin to see some effect on your field I would think, IF you didn't get it in time.

 

[Podunkadunk]

I'm not convinced it was roundup. Did you SEE the bottles and I just missed that part of the post, or are you speculating? Not trying to be a smart *&$, but you said you had never used roundup before...are you sure you know what it smells like? You were almost a quarter mile away, could you read the bottles from there, or did you walk over and look. I'm just curious.

Maybe it was a fungicide or some sort of pesticide? Did you try asking him what he was spraying?

Podunk

 

[Redbug]

Rainfastness is about 6 hours for most types of Roundup. I have used the RU Weathermax in the past and believe it is rainfast after about 1 hour.

Here's some good literature on that...
1 CONFUSING ISSUES ABOUT GLYPHOSATE James R. Martin and J.D. Green Dept of Agronomy, University of Kentucky


Roundup is a pretty safe chemical. I do not think you will have any problems from the downwind exposure.

 

[bigshovel]

I'm fairly confident Round up is only effective on grass. I know that some corn is now hybrid as round up ready. All my uses of the product have never killed anything but grass.

Brad

 

[WTA]

It was roundup. I'm sure of it. I know my neighbors pretty well. Plus he told me he was gong to use it the day before. I asked him to do it real early in the morning when the wind wasn't blowing too. I also gave him some other pointers about spraying safely around here, like which nozzles to use and how much to mix and all. Most of us here use pretty fast ground speeds with big nozzles that make droplets instead of a mist. That's because it's always so windy here. Roundup will kill everything living on my farm. I've read the bottles before. Pecan trees, peach trees, cherry trees, Bermuda and alfalfa are all susceptible to it.

Some of the Alfalfa has started showing signs of being hit by it. The top leaves on the plants have started turning colors. It's not looking too bad though. My fence lines from all the way over on his side to the one side of my alfalfa field got hit hard though. Those weeds are really laying over. Maybe they blocked some of the mist I'm hoping.

We haven't turned off the sprinklers on the alfalfa though since it happened. Hopefully most of it has been rinsed off in time. I'm sure the 6 inches of water I've put down so far didn't hurt at all either. I usually only do 3 inches a week.

If they made roundup ready pecan trees, I'd be planting a new orchard tomorrow. The RR Alfalfa is still held up in court battles and not on the market yet. I have one neighbor here that was lucky enough to get a few bags of it durring the very short time it was available about two years ago but noone else I know got any. The courts shut down sales of it real fast.

 

[WTA]

Well, it looks like some of the alfalfa got hit by it. Not bad really but enough. Most of the damage is limited to the shorter stuff along the fencelines where the sprinklers barely reach. I think I really saved it by running the sprinklers nonstop like I did on all of it.

I'm going to go talk to the neighbor but I don't think the damage I got is worth complaining about. I'm mostly going to tell him to let me spray from now on with my rig. His sprayer needs to be confined to the back yard where it can do what it was intended to do.

This whole darn field is going to be a total loss real soon for other reasons anyway. Between another neighbors horse, who he is about to have taken away by the law, getting into my field two mornings in a row, and the fact that the injector pump on my new tractor just decided to take a dump, I doubt I'll get this field baled in time. Right now it's perfect and just starting to flower out. It's all about knee high and we have 4-5 clear weather days it looks like. My tractor is back at the dealer though and it looks like they shipped the pump out somewhere to get rebuilt. That just makes my day. They won't give me a loaner either.

That's ok. My tractor payment is due in August and they know it. That hay out there is my payment. My buyers all want the crop analysis report from it and won't buy it if it's baled too late. They all are race horse owners.

 

[plowking]

Hope you make out ok. I'd find another dealer if possible that would loan a tractor in time of need. My dealer stresses his loaner program on his mission statement. I could get a loaner when mine goes back for service,repairs. plowking

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I sprayed roundup today about 4 pm, by 8 pm there was noticeable wilting of some ragweeds.

 

[WTA]

I got all my alfalfa cut a few days ago and now it's a rush against time to get it baled and put up before it rains. It's forecast for tomorrow morning. It's drying so slow!!! I raked it twice now to flip the rows over. I was in such a hurry to get it cut after getting my tractor back that I forgot to reset my haybine to lay a wide swath. Instead it put it in waist deep windrows. I also ran my tractor out of hydraulic oil about the time I got to the end of my cutting. That was thanks to the leak the dealer was asked to fix but only made worse. I spent close to 6 hours out there with a wheelbarrow and pitchfork picking all the oil covered hay out of the rows and tossing it over my fence.
I guess they thought it needed some preservative on it or something.