Spray drift

SPRAY drift isn’t only caused by 2,4-D.

It can occur across all agriculture including viticulture, horticulture, livestock farming, hobby farms even backyard spraying.

Public areas, eg roads, school grounds, parks where weeds – kikuyu, Johnson grass and other weed species may at times need to be controlled.

In home gardens Roundup/Zero (Glyphosate) is commonly used to control kikuyu that is getting into garden beds and other spots where it isn’t wanted and a spray of Glyphosate will speedily do the job, but woe is us.

A short time later nearby by plants start showing signs of dying.

Minuscule drift has occurred and some plants can only tolerate minimal amounts of spray drift and then there is a problem, that can’t be cured.

On large scale agricultural spraying with boom sprays and often planes, drift is very, very easy and common, often with disastrous and often costly results.

Years ago I had an area of brigalow regrowth aerial sprayed with mediocre results (brigalow is one of the hardest plants to get rid of ) and is a curse for those farmers who live in the brigalow habitat area.

In my case my fruit trees almost a kilometre away suffered severe dieback due to chemical drift, despite a calm morning and the spray pilot taking all care that he possibly could.

Absolute caution is needed in the use of weed killer chemicals. — RAY HARCH, Toowoomba