What's the matter with my potatoes?

[seedcorn]

You all are master gardeners, just no paper. For $5, I'll gladly send you one. After all I'm a CCA-theynsay that makes,me an expert.... what a joke.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I took actual plants in with roots and even one had the seed potato with it. They were in plastic bags with top half sticking out. This was a Master Gardener. I started to explain what was going on and she said, yes, yes, yes, and shaking her head yes and said this is herbicide damage. she started to tell me without a computer the things I have read on the links in this thread. She then gave me a print out of "Herbicide Carryover in Hay, Manure, Compost, and Grass Clippings, which you will find on a Google search.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Another thing that I find curious in your case Rabbits, is the uneven affect across your garden. In my unqualified opinion I would expect to see damage on everything if it were indeed herbicide residue.

I agree but my peppers and tomatoes have not been in long enough yet to be able to tell yet and the other crops they say are safe from this type of herbicide, cabbage, kale, etc.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

So you think you got herbicide damage form the straw from your rabbits? I think the rabbits would be dead if there was so much latent herbicide on the straw that it hurt your potatoes. Of course I am no expert. You can use an organic pesticide on the potatoes to get rid of the bugs that you saw. There are manny good ones.Potatoes can with stand quite a bit of foliage damage and still produce. Digging them all up seems extreme to me. All organic crops will have some pests. It is a balance of some for them and some for you.

I don't know if all this is even real or some crazy scare thing on the internet, but even rabbit food if Timothy hay or other hay based and not alfalfa, which I use Timothy hay pellets and not alfalfa. Horse food or any animal food that uses hay in the feed could spread this, is what I read and I am not sure if the herbicide is ON the straw or IN the straw. We are talking WHEAT straw, so why would this be sprayed in wheat anyway for people to eat. I would think the straw would have a different type of pesticide than hay.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Thistle, touched on a question I was going to ask. Did the diagnosis come from a visual inspection or did it actually get tested for pesticides?

Mary

Visual inspection.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I thought this was only on hay fields to kill weeds that would kill cattle or horses, but they spray this on wheat and gran, so if I buy oatmeal, bread, other food with grain and is not labeled organic then I am already eating this, but it will damage or kill certain vegetable and flower plants, but not so much others, so I eat squash grown in this crazy compost, is it any worse than eating bread from the grocery store?????? This article says marigolds are sensitive to the chemical and I have a bunch of those to plant and will spread them all around in different areas. The paper she gave me. http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/sfn/f09Herbicide

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I went out and took some pictures. I am going to quit worrying about this. It may be what seedcorn said about the hay leaching into the ground. The tomato plant in the picture was planted in the ground May 23, so 17 days in the ground and right next to it you see lettuce coming up that was just mixed in the ground from last year. I had a lot of lettuce go to seed. The pepper plant is one of the youngest I have and not planted yet. I just remembered I was running low on ProMix and I mixed it with this cow manure compost and the pepper is fine, so far. If these herbicides kill blackberries, I am showing pictures of a blackberry coming up right in a pile of half finished compost and hay, straw, and sunflowers showing no damage with some asparagus growing on half finished compost with the manure and straw, and blackberries that are growing right next to the compost bin in weeds. The potato plant is 2 feet from the potato plant I dug up and took to the extension office. The blackberry plant in the compost is after even I had been out there and dug up 11 that had spread in the garden. I have in pots and giving some away and going to plant the rest on a fence and they are very healthy. All of these plants should be damaged from herbicide like potatoes. Tomatoes, lettuce, sunflowers, peppers, blackberries would show damage.

 

[ninnymary]

It is such a mystery and I'm sorry you have to worry about this. I guess don't worry about the plants that are healthy. Hopefully whatever it is will leach out.

Mary

 

[catjac1975]

I know Master Gardeners who don't even garden. They live in condos and at the most have 1 tomatoe plant.

I'm not a Master Gardener but people ask me if I am. The Sunset editor thought I was one! I was embarrassed that she thought I was, haha.

Mary

Yes master gardeners take one class and volunteer their time somewhere. I have a friend who took the class-she knows very little about anything.

 

[catjac1975]

I don't know if all this is even real or some crazy scare thing on the internet, but even rabbit food if Timothy hay or other hay based and not alfalfa, which I use Timothy hay pellets and not alfalfa. Horse food or any animal food that uses hay in the feed could spread this, is what I read and I am not sure if the herbicide is ON the straw or IN the straw. We are talking WHEAT straw, so why would this be sprayed in wheat anyway for people to eat. I would think the straw would have a different type of pesticide than hay.

This seems like crazy thing on the internet. Every read what you should never feed your dog? Mine would have been dead along time ago.Anyone can write a paper and put it on the web. They write the paper from what they read on the internet reinterpreting others info. I still say the rabbit would be dead. Maybe the rabbit manure damaged the potatoes-it is very potent..