An herbicide so hazardous that courts have banned it twice

I’ve deep-dived into regenerative farming practices over the past six months, and commercial herbicides scare the hell out of me. These things are basically developed to very effectively kill non-grass, broadleaf plants. Unfortunately, that covers much of what we like to grow to eat, like tomatoes, potatoes, and legumes. Hence why the article mentions that GMO soybeans and cotton were developed to be resistant to this particular herbicide, and why it’s so devastating to crops.

And it’s scary how effective these things are. Aminopyralids (glyphosates, like grazon or roundup) can affect plants at concentrations of 1 part per billion (ppb), and apparently soil tests generally only test down to 5 ppb. So you could have contaminated soil or materials and have no idea, even if you ran a test. So the only real way to know is to test plant some peas or something to see whether they show signs of contamination. And hope that you have tested a representative sample.

These chemicals apparently mess with the stacking behavior of plant cells. So as the plant grows larger, the stems and leaves become more and more twisted and curled due to the cells not stacking properly. At least, that’s my understanding of how aminopyralids work, but it sounds like the chemical in this article may work similarly.

What’s worse is that some classes of herbicides (like aminopyralids) are persistant. They’re like the PFAs of herbicides. So if a farmer sprays their hay field with grazon to kill weeds, and then another person feeds that hay to some cows, horses, goats, rabbits, or whatever, the manure is basically poison; concentrated herbicides. If it’s applied to soil where crops are meant to grow, that soil will be contaminated for years. So one of nature’s greatest soil ammendments turns into a plague. The stories I’ve heard of persistent herbicide contamination are heartbreaking. Basically the only way to fix it is to grow vigorous grasses for several years to leech the poisons, and throw that grass into the landfill (because it’s contaminated too).

Be careful when you purchase manure, hay, and straw for your gardens, folks.