How to Test your Manure & Compost for Residual Herbicides

Residual Weedkiller or Herbicides in Manure can ruin your Garden if added to the soil.
No matter how vigilant you think you may have been is selecting your Manure supply there still is a risk of it being contaminated with residual herbicides,especially one called Aminopyralid.
There aren't any tests in place to see if you have any contaminated material other than the test I will show you in this video.
In fact this is the exact same test that the compost manufacturere own laboritories do if they suspect that they have produced contaminated material.
Hi, I'm Dan and I grow a huge variety of vegetables for eating and also some Giant and Exhibition Show varieties for Local and even National Competitions.
Throughout the year I will try to show how I go about growing my produce and hopefully give a few tips and tricks along the way.
Whether it be how I grow potatoes in containers, growing basic veg for the home to growing a 10 pound onion or even a 100 pound marrow I will chart all my progress.
Please have a look at my videos and subscribe to my Channel.
Thanks.

[theressomelovelyfilthdownh]

I threw my back out badly back in early spring this year. I was laid up for 12 days as I got news of something odd with everybody's potatoes. When I did hobble down the hill to the plot, it was depressing as feck man.

I knew right away what it was thanks to your older video on the dodgy compost you had a run in with. Don't worry, man, anybody who has a run in with this stuff knows exactly why this makes perfect sense.

19 drills at 14ft each of potatoes killed stone dead. I threw hay over them from the same place as well. So I'm just going to run the Rotavator over it, and start fresh next year. At least I won't need to add anything to it. Plus, I'm down where I grew 75 pumpkins last year. So I knew there was already a grid of places I'd already added four good shovels each of well rotted manure, and compost every four foot. So that saved the rest of my plot from really needing manured.

Almost killed my five apple trees as well. Had to wash them back to bare roots and move them to the other side of the plot. Right when they should be trying to set fruit. If people mulch round trees with it. Then it will hammer any of the common dwarf, and semi dwarf rootstock trees. So it's not just smaller plants, it will kill given a chance.

[kenbourne]

Here in Canada we have a real problem with weedkillers in manure so this information is very valuable- Thanks very much for your trouble.

[robindevellen]

We just started hearing about this. Thank you for giving me a way to check for these herbicides!

[scottwhite]

Dan, great information, our garden club did a bulk purchase of cow manure earlier this Spring. Ten of our members lost all of their spring veg. and had to do six months of remediation. They removed as much of the manure as they could and planted two rounds of field corn in an attempt to take up as much of the aminopyralids as possible. They won’t be able to plant vegetables until next Summer..
Thanks for posting about the dangers of these persistent herbicides.

[TazErrant]

Thanks Dan. Great info. I've got about 40 leftover bales of horse hay I'm using for the run and bedding for my organic chickens and from there I was wondering how to check if it was safe to compost and use in my veggie garden. I had finally decided to just throw it away out on the paddock and not use it. But now I will do some testing instead. Thank you!

[davedawson]

Proper job Dan. I've followed for years and seen your problem with this herbicide. Good grief. We can't even trust the horse turds now. Heads up everyone. 👍👍Dave

[chrisfarrell]

Excellent video and especially now with all the peat free composts you don't know what you're getting in the bags any more

[mungrova]

Thanks a lot, finally I got the information I've been searching for!

[David_Bell_growing]

Some people have forgotten about this, and others still don't know about it.

A local farmer's grass crops that are used to feed his cattle appear so unatural, they've obviously been intensively sprayed (we call him Pharma Ceutical), and a nearby allotment tenant is spreading manure from his farm all over their plot without testing it.

This is why I buy packets of beans and peas that I don't need for sowing when they are heavily reduced at the end of season.

Having said that, it's getting impossible to buy farm manure round here due to increased fertilizer costs and 'keep everything on the farm' being practiced, nothing is available anymore.

[blustardave]

What an interesting vid. I never knew about residual herbicides but now I do and now I know how to find out if the manure is any good :) Cheers.
By the way you seem to grow anything at anytime! Up here it's too cold and miserable to start anything off lol.
And like Columbo once said. "Just one more thing"
That spade thing you have is awesome :)
Si thee in a bit or whatever :)
Crack on!

[tubthump]

About 8 months ago i got a cubic metre of horse manure which I haven't spread around the plot yet. Its now full of worms and weeds grow on it so I initially thought it would be ok. I grew some peas (way late in the season) adjacent to the pile and they grew up fine but fell victim to what looked like some sort of powdery mildew. I feared the manure pile may have something nasty which leached into the soil the peas were growing in - anyone know if this could be a possibility? I'll definitely be doing this test before I spread it about though. If its dodgy what do I do with a ton of useless manure!? Annoyingly there's quite a lot of 'stones ' in it too - more like a large aggregate gravel like might be found on a gravel path though the plentiful worms don't seem to mind!

[lynmoore]

LOVE your vlog was just wondering when it the best time to pick my broad beans, I have hepas they are talling thne me\

[BionicRasta]

I'm surprised that farmers would feed hay to horses which has been sprayed with herbicides. Are there no regulations to prevent that?

[tanyav]

It's pretty bad when you can't trust shite. Wonder if these places you get manure from would let you take a couple nuggets to do the test before you dive into the commitment of getting a load. Imagine getting a load of manure that you can't use. What the bloody hell would you do with it?

[lynmoore]

hey I watched your Leek video, so done exactly what you did, just wondering how long does it take for the leeks to grow big eought to fill the hole/.

[Pixieworksstudio]

Greta video thank you. I wonder what it does to horses long-term, and other animals. Just a thought - I have that kind of brain 😁. Also it means people are eating cattle etc that have also eaten it and drunk milk from the animals. I dare say it will come out in the wash 🙂

[andydawson]

Very interesting information, I think the horse muck I have used over the last couple of years is contaminated, I had no idea about this, I just thought I was getting it all wrong. How long does it take to breakdown now that I have mixed it with my soil and cow manure.

[jeanhelliwell]

Just wondering, does the same issue come with cow muck too. They eat hay too.

[VanderlyndenJengold]

We had it. It lasted a year and we saw no further effects. Not to say they weren't there, yet everything looked fine. Really made the runnder beans go very bad though. Very odd-looking growth.

We spread out affected manure so it was in contact with soil.

It should be banned.

[kanhdahar]

grazon herbicide is some nasty stuff and can cause problems for a decade!