Strange situation....

[David]

I've had a .5 acre plot left un kept for 2 years. Suprisingly it never got too far out of hand. No trees began to grow, no black berry, dog fennel etc. Just grass. So this spring I nuked it for a throw an mow. Some areas turned jet black and never allowed anything sorghum to grow.

4 months later it's still the same.

What is this and what's happening.

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[Tap]

Are you sure that you applied the the type of herbicide that you THOUGHT you were using, and did you mix it as per label? If you wanted to apply gly, are you positive that you didn't inadvertantly grab a jug of something else?

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[David]

Yes I'm positive. The sorghum grew great in 100% of a differant 1 acre plot and great in 70% of the pictured plot. It's not the herbicide. In fact the areas that turned black were occupied by a very short thin grass before the herbicide was applied. It's as though some areas have a poison plant in them. There was 4 foot tall typical cool season grass directly adjacent to the area in question.

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[Jack Terpack]

The only thing I've ever seen that looks similar was an area that got sprayed due to a small hydraulic leak. It would have had to be a huge leak to cause that much damage. Have you sprayed anything since then with the same equipment? You could call the extension agent for Abbeville County. They might be able to take a sample and have it tested.

 

[j-bird]

wonder if you have not suffered from some sort of chemical drift. Some chemicals can literally lift like a cloud.....move several miles away and then settle. It's not real common, but not unheard of either.

 

[Tap]

wonder if you have not suffered from some sort of chemical drift. Some chemicals can literally lift like a cloud.....move several miles away and then settle. It's not real common, but not unheard of either.

My buddy is an auto body man. He said that paint spray in the air stays wet until it lands on something. It doesn't dry while floating through the air. I suppose herbicides could be the same way. All the labels say not to spray during a temperature inversion. I guess that takes the chemical aloft and who knows where it will land.

 

[Jack Terpack]

This may seem really weird, but I was just talking to a friend that is a full time farmer. I showed him your pictures and he says it looks like the result of a severe lightning strike. He says he had a water trough struck by lightning a few years ago and it scorched the earth for fifty yards in every direction. It took a couple years before anything would grow in that area.

 

[j-bird]

My buddy is an auto body man. He said that paint spray in the air stays wet until it lands on something. It doesn't dry while floating through the air. I suppose herbicides could be the same way. All the labels say not to spray during a temperature inversion. I guess that takes the chemical aloft and who knows where it will land.

I was talking to my ag renter about Liberty beans once and he tells me that the chemical used with them had this issue and why liberty beans fell out of "fashion" for a while. I assume that has been addressed, but maybe not, I don't know.

 

[David]

all possible....i dont know.

sequence of events for this plot

september 2016: killed everything with 2 qts/acre gly on atv, spread fert as recomended, planted clover and oats
march 2016: controlled burn around...but not in this plot

May 2017 sprayed with Cleth back pack sprayer as label recomended, terrible job...very spotty spray. killed only 70% of the grasses. picture attached of what that looked like.

next 12 months: Absolutely nothing for an entire year
may 2018...attempted through and mow after gly application (now the black areas show up). planted sorghum. no fertilizer at all.

thats it.


the only thing i will say is that the areas that turned black were in fact clearly a differant type of grass. much shorter....maybe a foot tall vs. 3 feet tall. i should have taken pictures before. but the areas that turned black and later on didnt grow anything were absolutely already affected before i sprayed gly this spring.

funny thing is this is my best spot for turkey hunting, they love it.

 

[David]

could the cleth have residual effects a year later?

could i have over mixed the cleth last year?

 

[dogghr]

Crop oil or surfactant??