Does anyone know whether having copious amounts of lead shot lying around is harmful to worms? I've eaten plenty of shot embedded in game and vermin in my time, but my guts are rather less abrasive than a worm's. Just pondering this as I wandered over our pastures this pm, in places the worm-casts are so deep you feel you're walking on cushions, in other places less so. There's been a lot of shooting here for at least a hundred years and I was trying to marry up where the shot will have (mainly) landed with the poorest population of worms, but it's pure conjecture atm. So, I thought I'd ask the experts: science or fantasy?
Worms and lead shot
- Thread starter martian
- Start date
Google the effect of lead on earth worms. There's a scientific paper on the subject. The next question is how much free lead is available from lead shot.
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blowing lead all around willy nilly is bound to affect something someday 
suffolksmallholder
Member
- Location
- Suffolk
Read the tales of early canned food aboard Erebus & Terror for an understanding of lead poisoning.
Why it has been steadily banned!
SS
Why it has been steadily banned!
SS
if it has happened those worm's would be ideal for fishing no weights needed lol.
ollie989898
Member
A lot of soils contain surprisingly amounts of heavy metals because of whatever geology is underneath them. I don't know at what levels it would need to reach to be toxic to all soil life. I agree that firing lead all over the shop is likely to be a problem long term but surely you would have to go some to get near them from shooting alone?
When we were in Weardale some of the lead mining areas it was prohibited to grow vegetables or so I was told by someone from Frosterly.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I read a set of particulars for a farm to let a few years back, up near Mold, Flintshire iirc.
There was an off lying block which was apparently so high in lead (from past mining activities) that you could not grow grass or cereals on it, only maize (which apparently doesn’t take lead up), or the feed would be toxic when fed. I’d never heard of that before.
No idea if they had any earthworms though.
There was an off lying block which was apparently so high in lead (from past mining activities) that you could not grow grass or cereals on it, only maize (which apparently doesn’t take lead up), or the feed would be toxic when fed. I’d never heard of that before.
No idea if they had any earthworms though.
ollie989898
Member
Interesting. You would think that plants would take it up irrespective of the species involved.
I know some GM trials were done on growing corn crops on soils in areas that were very very high in aluminium ions, they did it by producing plants that hugely exaggerated their citrate metabolism if I remember rightly.
Land that is naturally poisonous should probably be left for nature to reclaim so as to avoid excessive leaching of the metals into the ground water etc.
suffolksmallholder
Member
- Location
- Suffolk
The wildlife is thriving in and around Chernobyl which is great to see.
SS
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I've only got an anecdote, and it's damn near the same as neilo's post above.
We got a paddock ready for a client who has a gunclub on his land, put the paddock into brassicas for winter grazing and then they ripped up the part nearest the (gunclub) fence and put italian in that part, for those reasons.
Driving past there recently you could see these semicircles of browntop waving in the breeze, uneaten, while the rest of the grass paddock looked like a new grass paddock, nicely grazed down by sheep.
See quite a bit of that down here, browntop is a great grass species for taking up various heavy metals, the guys who apply more superphosphate have more browntop in their pastures as the stock hate eating the stuff... I can only imagine how bitter and rank a mouthful of cadmium/aluminium grass would be
We got a paddock ready for a client who has a gunclub on his land, put the paddock into brassicas for winter grazing and then they ripped up the part nearest the (gunclub) fence and put italian in that part, for those reasons.
Driving past there recently you could see these semicircles of browntop waving in the breeze, uneaten, while the rest of the grass paddock looked like a new grass paddock, nicely grazed down by sheep.
See quite a bit of that down here, browntop is a great grass species for taking up various heavy metals, the guys who apply more superphosphate have more browntop in their pastures as the stock hate eating the stuff... I can only imagine how bitter and rank a mouthful of cadmium/aluminium grass would be
Wilksy
Member
- Location
- East Riding
As said, unless it was used as clay target shoot I can’t see there being a significant concentration
livestock 1
Member
Yes Weardale is an area where there has been a lot of lead mining activity. There’s a lot of spoil heaps and what we call shaft heaps all over. The lead is in veins or seems nearly all underground there’s only odd places, I can only think of one that’s exposed. The problem seems to be where lead has been brought up to the surface on these heaps then grazed. I’ve never heard of any land severely contaminated enough that vegetables were prohibited to be grown but it would be common sense not to grow anything where these heaps are. If you dig into them you can easily find lead.
Interestingly we need to bolus all cattle and sheep the main things we are short of is copper and selenium. There is the question and what is probably the case is that molybdenum is actually preventing these things being available to the animal rather than there being a specific shortage. Molybdenum is found in mined areas.
There was a particular pasture between some blocks of land we have that was talked about by my father as being unsafe for grazing cattle. There has been losses in there years ago.
I would suspect as the years pass there’s less likelihood of lead being exposed.
Interestingly we need to bolus all cattle and sheep the main things we are short of is copper and selenium. There is the question and what is probably the case is that molybdenum is actually preventing these things being available to the animal rather than there being a specific shortage. Molybdenum is found in mined areas.
There was a particular pasture between some blocks of land we have that was talked about by my father as being unsafe for grazing cattle. There has been losses in there years ago.
I would suspect as the years pass there’s less likelihood of lead being exposed.
livestock 1
Member
It’s funny because we were just on about this today. My older relatives were lead miners then the later went back in for the fluorspar. Their average age life expectancy was in the 40’s we weren’t sure wether it was work or lead poisoning that was the problem. I’m sure lead poisoning is something that is accumulative so builds up in time.
Father in law and an uncle worked on some of the bridges in Scotland they were stripping paint and renewing bits one of them was the fourth rail bridge, they had a urine test for lead pretty often it’s in the paint
Father in law and an uncle worked on some of the bridges in Scotland they were stripping paint and renewing bits one of them was the fourth rail bridge, they had a urine test for lead pretty often it’s in the paint
I graze ground that was a clay shoot for years. A huge amount of lead must be sprinkled......not aware there's a deficit of worms. moles don't think so fir sure