Help! Possible Herbicide Damage

[norwalk]

I made an awful mistake yesterday - I accidentally sprayed a non-specific herbicide the active ingredient of which is Prometon 2.5% (.25lb per gallon of active ingredient) under the "drip line" of several mature evergreen and deciduous trees.

Luckily I didn't use anywhere near full strength - the label says it covers 800 sq ft per gall & I used 1/2 gallon, spread over approx 2800 sq feet, diluted with a constant stream of water from the hose end sprayer as it was applied.

Several web sites I investigated talked about effective doses of Prometon being in the neighborhood of 10 - 60 lbs of active ingredient per acre. Since an acre is 43,560 sq ft and the lowest effective dose is 10 lbs, 1 lb would cover
4,356 sq ft. I covered approx. 65% of the area 1 lb should cover using approx. .12 lbs. So the minimum effective dose appears to be about .65 lbs and I used about .12 or about 1/5th the minimum effective dosage.

One web site talked about Prometon being applied at the rate of 1 lb per 100 sq ft to be effective against some weeds. I figure I applied .0042 lbs per 100 sq ft.

I spoke with a local arborist who didn't think the trees would be affected too badly and reccommended I spread ROOTS fertilizer (3-3-3) under the trees and on the area I sprayed and then some watchful waiting.

I'm very concerned about damaging these trees - anyone have any thoughts? The trees are a mix of evergreens & deciduous with trunks of approx 10-12" across.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Well, the "upside" is that the roots of trees go well beyond the drip line, so you would have bee exposing them to harm, even if you had stayed farther away. Although a large percentage of roots are near the drip line, they grow out 3 to 5 times the hieght of the tree, and farther in many cases.

My first thought is that drenching the ground with water might move the chemical down past the roots, essentially rinsing it out of the root zone. This might actually help the tree take it up faster at first though, perhaps somebody else with more experience could comment.

This stuff is broken down by organic activity, so that may be what you arborist was getting at with the fertilizer recomendation. Perhaps a bagged, composted cow manure would be ideal for this.

 

[norwalk]

herbicide & trees

I'm contemplating trying activated charcoal. An article by Rutgers reccomends this. Will try to obtain some tommorrow.

I've had conflicting advice on applying water to the area - some say it will move the poison into the root zone, others that it will further dilute it. I'm going to wait until I've spoken with the mfr of the stuff and some one at Rutgers University's Coop Program before taking action.

Also on the table is soil removal - taking the top 2 or 3 inches of soil and gravel away.