A meeting Wednesday designed to clear issues surrounding the problems associated with the herbicide Milestone brought no hard answers, only pledges of help and expressions of resolve to find solutions locally.
Deborah Morton from Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of Milestone, heard tales from frustrated backyard gardeners and commercial growers who have lost crops directly or indirectly to the application of Milestone.
The herbicide, designed to eradicate invasive broadleaf species such as Canada thistle and varieties of knapsweed, also kills broadleaf favorites such as peppers, tomatoes and spinach.
Milestone gets to those crops through hay sprayed with the herbicide and manure from livestock that goes into compost used by growers.
Dow herbicide container labels spell out precautions to be taken with Milestone, but users often don’t read the labels.
Two dozen people involved in various aspects of agriculture attended the meeting Wednesday of the Herbicide Carryover Working Group.
Complaints about plant failures to germinate or stunted plant growths have left gardeners and growers at a loss for an explanation for years until it was determined a herbicide, not a virus, was responsible.
They took out some of their disgruntlement on Morton. The drive for profits makes Dow unresponsive to complaints, one person said. Another said organic growers who complain are shushed into silence by fear that no one will buy their produce if a herbicide has been used.
Morton said she has heard infrequent complaints about Milestone. But the Dow Agrosciences team is ready to work with growers to answer questions or find solutions, she said.
La Plata County weed manager Rod Cook said there is enough talent in the county to form a network to educate people who produce, sell or use manure or hay about the problems.
He cited a sheet with instructions on how to do a soil assay, written by Darrin Parmenter, to test for corrupted manure. Parmenter is the horticulturist at the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension Office in Durango.
A Dow AgroSciences website alerts Milestone users about its characteristics. The chemical passes through the digestive system of grazing livestock in three days, Morton said. In soil, Milestone has a half-life of 34.5 days, she said.
But manure may contain enough aminopyralid to injure broadleaf plants, including ornamentals, Dow says.
daler@durangoherald.com
