Tree Damage From Crop Spraying

[arathol]

It looks like herbicide damage or heat stress to me. I did observe that one of the trees is showing significant brown/dead parts, while the other plants just have leaves curling up. I'd suggest that dead tree was a goner prior to the herbicide spray.

Couple of points:

• The Dept. of Agriculture issues the pesticide licenses for the farmer, and supervises the use of herbicides. You got the right people on it.
• You wouldn't have been able to stop the farmer anyway, although there is a lot to be said for making friendly contact. They are entitled to do what they want on their property, and only an agent from the Dept of Agriculture would have been able to interfere. Even the County Sheriff would have been operating outside his authority to stop the farmer.

Assuming of course whoever was spraying had a license....never assume anything. If the wind is blowing and you think there may be an issue of drift on to your property, you have every right to ask to see the license and find out whats being sprayed. The farmer does not have the right to do what he wants if doing so infringes on your property and kills your trees.

 

[ATpro]

That first pic of the last batch you posted looks like Glyphosate burn for sure. They may have used a combination of Glyphosate and Dicamba. The bad one of the two is the Glyphosate, it enters the leaves and flows to the root and kills the plant, it will kill everything if it received the right dose. The Salt base Dicamba is like herbicide 2,4-D.and act like natural plant hormones known as auxins. The Dicamba has a ground residual affect that may last 4 to 6 weeks and the Glyphosate has no ground residual affect

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Looking back at the Weather Thread, the first few days of April the temps were in the 30s-40s.
Warmed up to the low 70s on the 4th and that day I mowed.
https://www.arboristsite.com/threads/the-weather-thread.354769/page-27#post-7715292
I'm guessing that's about the time they sprayed.
Looking at the weather history, for the month of April, there was a drastic spike in the wind on the 4th of 125mph, but pretty sure that was some kind of anomaly.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tn/nashville/KBNA/date/2022-4

 

[farmer steve]

Definitely looks like some type of herbicide injury with the curled leaves. Depends on what they were spraying if it will cause permanent injury/ death. I know dicamba has a bunch or rules regulating the use of it because of the damage it has caused. If a farmer is using a restricted use pesticide/herbicide they are required to have an applicators license. At least here in PA.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Definitely looks like some type of herbicide injury with the curled leaves. Depends on what they were spraying if it will cause permanent injury/ death. I know dicamba has a bunch or rules regulating the use of it because of the damage it has caused. If a farmer is using a restricted use pesticide/herbicide they are required to have an applicators license. At least here in PA.

I know when I was office manager at a nursery I was in charge of recording all that and keeping up with ppe, etc. Had a chart documenting what was used, how much, time sprayed, time to keep out of field, and on what day. The guys had to flag the sections as soon as they finished spraying.
Also had a guy from APHIS come out regularly to inspect.

I just called the man back to see if I needed to do anything, like snip samples of the leaves - he was adamant - don't touch them.
He mentioned a lady who raised rabbits and they were all killed, but because she buried them before the inspector came out, he couldn't prove anything. Said the same thing happened with a beekeeper, he disposed of the bees before the inspector showed up.
He said the inspector should call today and if not to call him back Monday. Very helpful.

 

[pdqdl]

Assuming of course whoever was spraying had a license....never assume anything. If the wind is blowing and you think there may be an issue of drift on to your property, you have every right to ask to see the license and find out whats being sprayed. The farmer does not have the right to do what he wants if doing so infringes on your property and kills your trees.

You are sadly mistaken. A private citizen is no more able to ask for a pesticide license than for another persons driver's license. You can ask, but Farmer John doesn't have to even give you an answer. A law enforcement officer can ask to see the license (or anything else, for that matter), but they are not qualified nor empowered to enforce any pesticide regulations. While a farmer is responsible for the outcome of his actions, he damn sure can do what he wants until a governing authority tells him to stop.

Now if a citizen called the cops, went out into the field with his shotgun, intent on not taking "No!" for an answer, the cops would probably get involved real quick, place a call to the dept of Ag, and might stop the farmer if they observed compelling reasons for concern. Almost certainly, Mr. Citizen would get arrested for something, just because it isn't legal to interfere with a businessman doing his business, and waving a shotgun around is generally frowned upon, also. Unless... Mr. Dept of Agriculture came along and told the cops that the citizen was correct to interfere. Then things might take a different direction.

This scenario isn't much different than a homeowner A telling the neighbor B that they cannot cut down their own tree. "My house is at risk, and you are clearly going to crash that tree into my home". "A" might be right, but citizen A isn't empowered to control citizen B, even when "B" is flying in the face of good sense. And a cop isn't trained nor empowered to regulate the cutting down of a tree, at least not anywhere that I know of.

 

[pdqdl]

We've had an extremely wet spring, and windy too.
Specifically, which "dead tree" are you referring to?
None of these trees were dead prior to the spraying, in fact I had noticed how beautiful the pink new oak leaves were that were coming on.

This one:


The age of that injury looks a lot different than on the other plants. Incidental note: the oak leaves in that picture look a bit chlorotic, too. It's hard to tell for sure from a back-lit leaf in a picture, but you might consider applying some iron sulfate to the soil.

 

[pdqdl]

Definitely looks like some type of herbicide injury with the curled leaves. Depends on what they were spraying if it will cause permanent injury/ death. I know dicamba has a bunch or rules regulating the use of it because of the damage it has caused. If a farmer is using a restricted use pesticide/herbicide they are required to have an applicators license. At least here in PA.

Dicamba is not a restricted use herbicide, unless the ag market has a special version that is extra strong and therefor gets extra regulation. There are a vast amount of herbicides available, and it is hard enough for me to keep up with all the variations in the T&O trade. Many products cross over to or from the ag market, though.

Example: You can buy Tordon RTU down at the farm store to kill your recently cut stumps. You cannot buy Tordon 22k except from a pesticide dealer, and then only with proof of an applicator's license. Because the concentration is much greater, it is a restricted use herbicide. Even when diluted out to make exactly the same formulation as Tordon RTU, the rules for the application remain in place.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

This one:

The age of that injury looks a lot different than on the other plants. Incidental note: the oak leaves in that picture look a bit chlorotic, too. It's hard to tell for sure from a back-lit leaf in a picture, but you might consider applying some iron sulfate to the soil.

Could be.
Pretty sure it all happened same time.
But, these oaks were what I'd call culls and have been struggling since I planted them.
I do recall thinking before this happened how nice they were coming along and might actually turn into nice trees.

Here's a close-up of that tree

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Wrong tree.
Here it is...
What are those little knobby bumps on the stem near the bottom?

 

[pdqdl]

Galls? Egg cases of an invading insect? Hungry snails, running from a leafless tree?

The picture resolution is really too poor to hazard a guess. I can state with great confidence that it isn't the result of any herbicide damage, and might be related to the stunted leaves.

 

[arathol]

You are sadly mistaken. A private citizen is no more able to ask for a pesticide license than for another persons driver's license. You can ask, but Farmer John doesn't have to even give you an answer. A law enforcement officer can ask to see the license (or anything else, for that matter), but they are not qualified nor empowered to enforce any pesticide regulations. While a farmer is responsible for the outcome of his actions, he damn sure can do what he wants until a governing authority tells him to stop.

Now if a citizen called the cops, went out into the field with his shotgun, intent on not taking "No!" for an answer, the cops would probably get involved real quick, place a call to the dept of Ag, and might stop the farmer if they observed compelling reasons for concern. Almost certainly, Mr. Citizen would get arrested for something, just because it isn't legal to interfere with a businessman doing his business, and waving a shotgun around is generally frowned upon, also. Unless... Mr. Dept of Agriculture came along and told the cops that the citizen was correct to interfere. Then things might take a different direction.

So your answer is let him spray now, see what dies later?
It doesn't matter who is required to show what to who. There are apparently on-going issues with this farmer and he knows he is causing problems for his neighbors, so you need to be pro-active in your approach. If the farmer is a spraying toxic chemical that is now drifting on to your property, you need to do what you need to do to stop it before something happens. Talk to the farmer, get the police involved etc. Everything you do to stop the farmer is a point in your favor when it comes time for legal action. The farmer is uncooperative, won't talk to you and just keeps spraying herbicides onto your property, document that for use later. The police don't need to be trained in the pertinent regulations. They should be able to stop the spraying in the interest of public safety until further determinations can be made. In any case there will be a police report that documents the situation and the actions of the farmer which can be used as evidence in court. Letting the farmer do what he wants now, then attempting to pursue legal action later with little evidence is absolutely the wrong way to go about this.

 

[pdqdl]

So your answer is let him spray now, see what dies later?
It doesn't matter who is required to show what to who. There are apparently on-going issues with this farmer and he knows he is causing problems for his neighbors, so you need to be pro-active in your approach. If the farmer is a spraying toxic chemical that is now drifting on to your property, you need to do what you need to do to stop it before something happens. Talk to the farmer, get the police involved etc. Everything you do to stop the farmer is a point in your favor when it comes time for legal action. The farmer is uncooperative, won't talk to you and just keeps spraying herbicides onto your property, document that for use later.

The police don't need to be trained in the pertinent regulations.

Yes, actually they do. In addition to being a legal obligation to not enforce laws they are not empowered to do, they would be exposing the police department to litigation by the farmer. Arbitrarily declaring the farmer a menace to the public would be a can of worms that many police departments don't wish to open.

They should be able to stop the spraying in the interest of public safety until further determinations can be made. In any case there will be a police report that documents the situation and the actions of the farmer which can be used as evidence in court. Letting the farmer do what he wants now, then attempting to pursue legal action later with little evidence is absolutely the wrong way to go about this.

You could call the Dept of Agriculture. Don't count on a rapid response.
You could hire an expert, and prepare for litigation.
You might get a cop to exceed their authority. They do that often enough on a lot of other issues. Sure, there would be a police report, but that doesn't probably amount to anything with respect to the Dept of Agriculture. If you needed a "neutral witness", I'm sure it would be hard to get a better witness for court than a fair minded cop.

Realistically, though, how are you going to expect a local cop to enforce Federal regulations that he is neither authorized to protect nor trained to enforce? You might as well call the local cops when you have a clear case of violating some FAR part 16 regulations (Federal Acquisition Regulations). NOPE. That would take the FBI. Maybe the GAO. Hell I don't know that stuff either! But I am pretty familiar with pesticide regulations, having been a licensed applicator in 3 categories since 1984.

Now there is always the general consideration that the farmers generally do their scientific best to keep that pesticide application right where they want it. Allowing drift is a big no no for more reasons than causing collateral damage. You end up with an ineffective application and you waste money. That is a really big consideration for most farmers.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

I concur. I asked a neighbor? Thats not research, and research isn't done by keyboard. IF your concern is truly valid, don't come on a forum looking for legal finger pointing. They are your trees, not the Internets.

BillG was replying to Lone Wolf, and not me, the op.

 

[arathol]

Yes, actually they do. In addition to being a legal obligation to not enforce laws they are not empowered to do, they would be exposing the police department to litigation by the farmer. Arbitrarily declaring the farmer a menace to the public would be a can of worms that many police departments don't wish to open.



You could call the Dept of Agriculture. Don't count on a rapid response.
You could hire an expert, and prepare for litigation.
You might get a cop to exceed their authority. They do that often enough on a lot of other issues. Sure, there would be a police report, but that doesn't probably amount to anything with respect to the Dept of Agriculture. If you needed a "neutral witness", I'm sure it would be hard to get a better witness for court than a fair minded cop.

Realistically, though, how are you going to expect a local cop to enforce Federal regulations that he is neither authorized to protect nor trained to enforce? You might as well call the local cops when you have a clear case of violating some FAR part 16 regulations (Federal Acquisition Regulations). NOPE. That would take the FBI. Maybe the GAO. Hell I don't know that stuff either! But I am pretty familiar with pesticide regulations, having been a licensed applicator in 3 categories since 1984.

Now there is always the general consideration that the farmers generally do their scientific best to keep that pesticide application right where they want it. Allowing drift is a big no no for more reasons than causing collateral damage. You end up with an ineffective application and you waste money. That is a really big consideration for most farmers.

Having an applicators license doesn't mean much, or make somebody an expert either. Anybody can get those pretty easily today. I have a SIL who works for a local company and he has an applicators license for 2 or 3 different things, including herbicides and pesticides. Personally though I wouldn't let him water my lawn if you know what I mean.
I worked with various companies hired by the DOT to do vegetation control using Round-Up (among other things) applied on State highways for some time as an inspector. They had rules to follow, and if somebody caught them doing something they should not be doing, you can believe that the reaction was immediate, no wait and see then let the Feds sort it out. Dealing with environmental issues and toxic chemicals you can't afford to wait for a Federal inspector to make an appearance an offer an opinion. It just doesn't work that way. Any incident, even a small one such as a leaking spray nozzle, was required to be reported and corrected immediately, no waiting for some bureaucracy to take action. Every drop had to be accounted for, everything that was sprayed had to be documented. Weather conditions had to be monitored and documented. There is no such thing as "spray and pray".
As to drift, if the wind was such that drift control agents couldn't stop the herbicide from leaving the farmers field and possibly contaminating some one elses property, the farmer should not have been spraying to begin with. Thats a clear violation, and its one thats easily judged as a safety hazard by any half way intelligent cop. Local cops don't have to be trained experts. They can see a public safety issue, and if they need resolution all they need to do is make a phone call. A call from the police is something that can't easily be ignored. If the farmer is allowing toxic chemicals to contaminate the property surrounding his fields, then maybe his actions are a public menace and should be stopped. If the police see it as a problem and don't do anything that would be even worse, wouldn't it?

 

[ATpro]

The picture resolution is really too poor to hazard a guess. I can state with great confidence that it isn't the result of any herbicide damage, and might be related to the stunted leaves.

It's herbicide damage when you see the mature leaves roll up like that and my guess is Glyphosate and maybe some Dicamba added since they were spraying post emergent soy beans. Glyphosate kills from the root, it enters from the leaf, goes to the root an affects water collection and prevents the plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth, then starves the plant to death. If not a killing dose it will stunt the plant growth.

 

[JimR]

No smart farmer will spray during high winds.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

It's herbicide damage when you see the mature leaves roll up like that and my guess is Glyphosate and maybe some Dicamba added since they were spraying post emergent soy beans. Glyphosate kills from the root, it enters from the leaf, goes to the root an affects water collection and prevents the plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth, then starves the plant to death. If not a killing dose it will stunt the plant growth.

This makes sense - and this visible effect could cause a person to assume "heat stress" and to suggest watering the trees?

 

[Jim Gudde]

With dicamba this is a known problem with drift and a inversion layer movement. Some states have now banned or have
previously banned dicamba use. Roundup being a systemic herbicide usually does not show immediate results since it
has to absorbed and transferred to the roots of the plant. As for a comment that someone is sure that your issue is
is not herbicide related based on a picture might be incorrect.

 

[pdqdl]

It's herbicide damage when you see the mature leaves roll up like that and my guess is Glyphosate and maybe some Dicamba added since they were spraying post emergent soy beans. Glyphosate kills from the root, it enters from the leaf, goes to the root an affects water collection and prevents the plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth, then starves the plant to death. If not a killing dose it will stunt the plant growth.

I was only referring to the funny looking bumps on the stem. Read a bit closer before adding criticism, please.

As for a comment that someone is sure that your issue is
is not herbicide related based on a picture might be incorrect.

Do you guys read these posts, or are you just scanning quickly for opportunities to stir up an argument?

What I said was this:

It looks like herbicide damage or heat stress to me. I did observe that one of the trees is showing significant brown/dead parts, while the other plants just have leaves curling up. ...