Spraying fungicide and side effects

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
Hopefully spray drift won't be a common occurrence for you. Things do go wrong and obviously did. Just a thought could the sprayer have kicked up pollen? Sprays are generally safe. Binding agents can smell a bit. But nature doesn't care an awful lot with pollen. Pollen counts tend to be high after damp weather a sprayer would be similar.
As a farmer I hate the fact spray manufacturers seam to rely on us professing their products are safe. The public should understand we want them safe, effective and targeted.

There really should be more clarity. Manufacturers do need to put it out there that they're safe and show us proof.

I did look online and I found some horrible info, fear mongering stuff. I'm not sure where it has come from, what studies were done and if they could prove the damage to life. It's a bit like the EMF argument.

Either way, I don't fancy the drift getting onto us or entering our house every time they spray, which I'm sad to say has been happening. Every time we've been there anyway. I still don't know who the farmer is and I'd like to just ask them to create a buffer zone for us so it's not right up to our garden or overhanging the road opposite. We're putting fencing up so we're not planning to pinch their land.

And yes, I'm sure you want them safe too seen as you have to work with them. I guess you too are relying on manufacturers claims that they are safe. I do hope they are, for all of us, especially our children. We do have very right to question this though, all of us. Famers and public. At the end of the day you're paying a lot of money for this and then we're potentially inhaling it and it's on our food.

Thank you for your reply. There has been some fab and honest responses on here . Some weird ones too but I'll just ignore though ;-)
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
No, we don't rely on manufacturers claims. We rely on the stringent, long term, precaution based science of the EU and UK chemical licensing process. It's not a Bayer / Monsanto conspiracy.

It's not on the food. Products have stringent timing requirements and foodstuffs are tested for residues.

You can always find something on the internet. If you want to find proper info, you can call the Pesticides Safety people at the HSE who will explain the rigours to get a chemical active approved. It's certainly a longer process than a covid vaccination, although any number of folk will tell you that's a conspiracy too. Sigh.
 
What do you mean??


Either way, I don't fancy the drift getting onto us or entering our house every time they spray, which I'm sad to say has been happening. Every time we've been there anyway. I still don't know who the farmer is and I'd like to just ask them to create a buffer zone for us so it's not right up to our garden or overhanging the road opposite. We're putting fencing up so we're not planning to pinch their land.

we're potentially inhaling it and it's on our food.

You joined the forum on the 12/06/21 so have no previous history of posting.
You made an accusation against a farmer which quite frankly is dubious as a individual incident due to the rules and regs but also the sheer cost of the chemicals. However as a one off and giving you benefit of doubt then ok it was wrong.

But then in your last post you clearly say that it happens every time he sprays as well as saying the chemicals are on the food people eat. Those statements are utter rubbish.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Well it’s one of those things. I’d rather do without chemicals personally in terms of safety and expense and time spent applying them and the sort of aggravation we see arising in this thread BUT …. we can’t deliver safe food without them. Some of the mycotoxins that would infest the wheat if we didn’t use fungicides would be more likely to damage your health than the fungicides themselves, not that the fungicides are actually in the food you eat. So for me we are working pragmatically for the common good by using fungicides. It’s a risk/benefit compromise but obviously it won’t please everybody. I have yet to hear what they propose as an alternative solution that would result in mass starvation.
As for the spray operator, why not drop him an Lechler IDK nozzle brochure? I have switched to those nozzles and have reduced drift to negligible amounts. They throw about big globules of air filled liquid that splat on the plants. They don’t blow around.
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
Well it’s one of those things. I’d rather do without chemicals personally in terms of safety and expense and time spent applying them and the sort of aggravation we see arising in this thread BUT …. we can’t deliver safe food without them. Some of the mycotoxins that would infest the wheat if we didn’t use fungicides would be more likely to damage your health than the fungicides themselves, not that the fungicides are actually in the food you eat. So for me we are working pragmatically for the common good by using fungicides. It’s a risk/benefit compromise but obviously it won’t please everybody. I have yet to hear what they propose as an alternative solution that would result in mass starvation.
As for the spray operator, why not drop him an Lechler IDK nozzle brochure? I have switched to those nozzles and have reduced drift to negligible amounts. They throw about big globules of air filled liquid that splat on the plants. They don’t blow around.

Great info, thank you. If I can find out who he is I will have a chat with him about the drift and mention the above. The nozzles he is using look like they make a fine mist which swirls into the air and like I said, he seemed to be going a little fast.
I hear what you're saying as mycotoxins certainly do damage health. Interestingly that's what my eldest's ENT specialist stated. He said we live in a mouldy County and there is higher cases of allergies/rhinitis/asthma because of it. Not sure how true this is but he said he see's this a lot here. So I guess it really is about finding the balance and keeping it as far away from peoples boundaries as possible whilst protecting the crop.
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
You joined the forum on the 12/06/21 so have no previous history of posting.
You made an accusation against a farmer which quite frankly is dubious as a individual incident due to the rules and regs but also the sheer cost of the chemicals. However as a one off and giving you benefit of doubt then ok it was wrong.

But then in your last post you clearly say that it happens every time he sprays as well as saying the chemicals are on the food people eat. Those statements are utter rubbish.
Here to learn.
I can assure you that I'm not a writer but now I'm starting to think I could be seen as you think it's a ''set up''. I'm joking of course. Thank you for your input.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Great info, thank you. If I can find out who he is I will have a chat with him about the drift and mention the above. The nozzles he is using look like they make a fine mist which swirls into the air and like I said, he seemed to be going a little fast.
I hear what you're saying as mycotoxins certainly do damage health. Interestingly that's what my eldest's ENT specialist stated. He said we live in a mouldy County and there is higher cases of allergies/rhinitis/asthma because of it. Not sure how true this is but he said he see's this a lot here. So I guess it really is about finding the balance and keeping it as far away from peoples boundaries as possible whilst protecting the crop.
He might just be using flat fan nozzles which are just a primitive nozzle with no air induction. They produce a wide variety of spray particle sizes. The smallest particles are so light they drift easily. Sometimes you cant really avoid using these fine spray nozzles such as when trying to hit tiny weeds buts that usualy early in the season on crops like beet. But generally at this time of year you are applying fungicides and you want big heavy droplets that splat and spread on impact with the plant. These are produced by air induction nozzles which effectively produce quite big heavy bubbles of liquid and very few fine particles so you get very little drift.
The other factor that can increase the amount of drift with any nozzle is too high a forward speed. As you go faster, the automatic controller on the sprayer has to increase the pressure to get same amount of spray on the plants. The higher pressure and flow through the nozzle makes the spray "finer" and more likely to drift especially on the basic cheapo flat fan nozzles. If he slowed down, the controller would reduce the pressure as it doesn't need to come through the nozzle so quickly to get the same rate on the plant and the spray would be coarser or lumpier and less likely to blow around. If I'm passing gardens I will slow down and thereby reduce the pressure to make the spray coarser and less drifty.
It's all connected with the Bernoulli Equation and conservation of energy. And you have to increase the pressure by a factor of 4 to double the flow rate so you don't have to drive much faster than design speed to create a hell of a lot more drift. Fluid mechanics - I love it.
Anyway, in a nutshell, a lot of design effort and thought has gone into trying to keep people safe in the design of suitable nozzles. But whether spray operators or farmers use those safer nozzles or not is another matter. I used to be a sceptic, but now I use low drift air induction nozzles for most jobs. Saves wasting spray as well. Spray that is drifting away is money and resource wasted and creates a hazard.
 

Fish

Member
Location
North yorkshire
Once had a guy March up to me as I folded up the booms after ”spraying” a field we have which has a caravan site on one side, he demanded to know what dangerous chemicals I’d been using, as both he and his wife had been caught in the drift and were now suffering the after effects and as a GP he knew all about this sort of thing.
I replied that I found it was remarkable he was covered in chem drift, as the site was at lest 50m up wind, but no matter, he was in luck and the tank only contained H20 as I was checking the machine and the previous 20+ loads had all been liquid fert.
Fec*in chancer.
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
Once had a guy March up to me as I folded up the booms after ”spraying” a field we have which has a caravan site on one side, he demanded to know what dangerous chemicals I’d been using, as both he and his wife had been caught in the drift and were now suffering the after effects and as a GP he knew all about this sort of thing.
I replied that I found it was remarkable he was covered in chem drift, as the site was at lest 50m up wind, but no matter, he was in luck and the tank only contained H20 as I was checking the machine and the previous 20+ loads had all been liquid fert.
Fec*in chancer.
I'm sure there are people like that out there but I feel if someone has genuine concerns then it would be kind to ease their concerns and answer questions/work together on this. We've all got to share this planet after all.

Farmers do a wonderful job and are much needed of course but remember the public has been frightened by reports and health scares. For me, I had a reaction to it and it wasn't nice this is what made me question what it was :-/
 
I'm sure there are people like that out there but I feel if someone has genuine concerns then it would be kind to ease their concerns and answer questions/work together on this. We've all got to share this planet after all.

Farmers do a wonderful job and are much needed of course but remember the public has been frightened by reports and health scares. For me, I had a reaction to it and it wasn't nice this is what made me question what it was :-/

I'm sure you got better quite quickly and no lasting harm will have been done.

Remember this stuff is tested on rats for toxicity at way higher doses than you will have ingested.

Chemicals need to be handled appropriately of course but the amount you will have ingested would have been very very small
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
I'm sure you got better quite quickly and no lasting harm will have been done.

Remember this stuff is tested on rats for toxicity at way higher doses than you will have ingested.

Chemicals need to be handled appropriately of course but the amount you will have ingested would have been very very small

I did get better quickly yes, just the initial irritating symptoms. Lasted a couple of days. We went back to the new house to do some gardening and they turned up again. Think we had a total of 3x but on two occasions we jumped back into the car and left. Then my other half said they turned up a couple of time when they were there too. That's a lot of spraying.

If this is every other day or 3x a week in Summer, that's long term exposure, every year. This is my issue. Safe or not it's still not something I wish to inhale, just in case. Mainly for the Children's sake.

I'm hoping we can get them to keep clear of our garden and just leave a little bit of a buffer zone, slow down and avoid misting our property. Hopefully some hedges and conifers will help too.

Overall we just need to have respect and consideration for one another. I know the job needs to be done but I also know spraying us in our own garden in Summer can be avoided. He didn't need to speed or hang that boom over the road. Sounds like this is not how it should be done, so many considerate sprayers here.
 
I did get better quickly yes, just the initial irritating symptoms. Lasted a couple of days. We went back to the new house to do some gardening and they turned up again. Think we had a total of 3x but on two occasions we jumped back into the car and left. Then my other half said they turned up a couple of time when they were there too. That's a lot of spraying.

If this is every other day or 3x a week in Summer, that's long term exposure, every year. This is my issue. Safe or not it's still not something I wish to inhale, just in case. Mainly for the Children's sake.

I'm hoping we can get them to keep clear of our garden and just leave a little bit of a buffer zone, slow down and avoid misting our property. Hopefully some hedges and conifers will help too.

Overall we just need to have respect and consideration for one another. I know the job needs to be done but I also know spraying us in our own garden in Summer can be avoided. He didn't need to speed or hang that boom over the road. Sounds like this is not how it should be done, so many considerate sprayers here.

Are you sure the issue isn't combined with the amount of pollen about at the moment?

What crop is it? Very few crops get sprayed every other day or 3 times a week.
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
Are you sure the issue isn't combined with the amount of pollen about at the moment?

What crop is it? Very few crops get sprayed every other day or 3 times a week.

It could be pollen I guess but it really did sting the lining of my nose. I don't usually suffer with hay fever. It was from the May bank holiday. We had all that lovely weather and the sprayer turned up around lunch time. Then it was 2-3 days later and again at the weekend. It was after all of the rain so maybe it was needed? The crop looks like young wheat? it looks like grass at the moment. I wondered if it was just water and then my other half said no way, it stinks. We could smell it in the house too. I'd love to be able to ask them direct.
 
It could be pollen I guess but it really did sting the lining of my nose. I don't usually suffer with hay fever. It was from the May bank holiday. We had all that lovely weather and the sprayer turned up around lunch time. Then it was 2-3 days later and again at the weekend. It was after all of the rain so maybe it was needed? The crop looks like young wheat? it looks like grass at the moment. I wondered if it was just water and then my other half said no way, it stinks. We could smell it in the house too. I'd love to be able to ask them direct.

Put a picture up here maybe and we can tell you what crop it is?

Very few diluted agrochemicals smell very strong
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
Put a picture up here maybe and we can tell you what crop it is?

Very few diluted agrochemicals smell very strong
Thank you, it's very hard to describe the smell, to me slightly clinical smelling? It opened up my airways and caused me to bring up fluid (sorry tmi). A bit like when you go into those steam rooms at the swimming pool- Chlorine/Eucalyptus. Bit of a mucous membrane irritant I would say. It affected my tiny 7kg daughter worse. With a wet cough. It didn't last long though.

Thank you, I will take a picture of it in the daylight.

The land is also surrounded by dykes and he was spraying over them to cover the weeds I assume? I do have a Video but I won't put it online, my other half filmed it because they were shocked how close it was to us.
 

Rue

Member
Mixed Farmer
Would be interesting to see the video. Please put it up.
I think I may do....I've just watched it back and he's driving pretty fast with quite a tail of mist....obviously the camera didn't pick up as much as we could see.
 

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