(bright music) - Welcome to Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

I'm your host, Kim Todd.

On Digging Deeper in-depth discussions with extension and industry experts about those important landscape topics.

Tonight, we are going to be talking about drift with Dr. Roch Gaussoin, who of course does weeds and turf and soil and all sorts of good things and it was actually Roch's idea to say, well, let's just talk about catch my drift.

- Yeah and we're gonna start with other things.

Non target pesticide application is a serious problem anywhere, but especially in the landscape, because we have material that is very prone to damage, especially with common lawn herbicides.

So we will talk about that a little bit, but I just want to talk about the number of ways that a person can avoid non target injury.

And let's start with, what did you have in your tank when you started, right?

What was in that tank?

You had glyphosate in it, and then you went to a fruit spray and you sprayed your fruit trees.

Did you get all of the glyphosate out of there?

So there is procedures, the three triple rinse procedure where you rinse it out three times and agitate it a little bit, make sure you get that out.

If you see any foaming, when you first start before you put anything in, then you certainly probably have some residue and need to be concerned about that so that's one thing.

So we would call that direct application and I actually have a image I'd like to show about a direct application that caused some footprinting on a golf green.

- So I recall actually having that happen once.

You're in a yard and all of a sudden, there are the footprints.

And I think one of the other things that you mentioned about the tank, wouldn't it make sense for people who really are going to use a fairly large arsenal of chemicals to have more than one?

- I have a insecticide tank, I have a fungicide tank and I have a herbicide tank.

And the one that you definitely don't want to cross over because you can cause some injury and some other things with any pesticide.

But with ones that are designed to kill plant material, herbicide, it's not designed to kill people named herb, it's designed to kill plants, and you have all these plants that you want to keep going.

My wife immediately knows when I've been a little bit less than careful and when I've burned a few of her leaves, but the image you're looking at right now is really intriguing to me because...

I said, talking about insecticides, this is actually an insecticide injury on a golf tee.

And they put it up down around their feet, right?

To keep the critters off, to keep it off or whatever.

And that physically has a toxin in it designed to not only deter the insects, but also a toxic chemical that is injurious to grasses and actually injurious to any plant material for that matter.

We see this often when people are getting overly ambitious with off type sprays and not specifically that brand but off type sprays, but the person is standing there and then they do this, and then they walk away and they don't see anything.

And then, especially in the heat of the summer, a couple of days later, they see this.

This would be a direct application, and you want to avoid that so keep your tanks clean, or use specific tanks as you suggested.

And definitely don't grab the insecticide spray and throw it out there on the golf course or in your lawn, you're spraying down the kids, getting them ready for something.

And I have heard about some of our spray on sunscreens doing the same thing and causing some injury.

- I wouldn't not think about an insecticide damaging the plant.

- No, it's not a herbicide, right?

So you just need to understand that the propellant and the other 'inert', quote inert ingredients, can cause some problems, so that that's one.

So spray, direct application, or you accidentally spray, or your tank has something in it.

So you've got that going on.

There's also one that we're hearing a lot about right now called temperature inversion, and with the Dicamba ready plant material, that's out there and making great gains in terms of the use by row crop people, we know that Dicamba is very prone to inversion.

And inversion is really freakishly odd because normally as you go away from the earth surface, it gets cooler, but sometimes we get a warm layer, especially if it's foggy or, you've got some low cloud cover, that layer can sometimes be warmer, and that causes inversion where material can actually, move off the site, move over.

And then when the inversion causing temperature changes, just drop right down and I've seen some unique pictures where it was like nobody sprayed within a half mile and that happens.

We don't see that in the home and garden much, but it does occur and that's the other way you could do it.

But then finally, do you want to get my drift?

Drift is probably the number one culprit, in the lawn and garden.

And there are number of things you can do to make sure that you don't have some of these things associated with drift.

Number one is, don't spray when it's windy.

It's really simple, don't spray when it's windy.

Now, do you have to get a really in-depth digital, I think it's called an anemometer, a wind gauge and they have some really nice ones out there, and you can get them in your farm appliance stores or whatever, but do you really need that?

And actually I have a couple of what I've used for years, because normally you don't want to be spraying, above about 10 miles per hour.

And I have a couple of graphics I'd like to show now, that'll basically take you down the lawn.

The first one gives the origins of this methodology, which I find really intriguing 'cause this is something that we knew about, back in like 2000 or 1906.

And it's what sailor is used.

It was used for Gail forest winds and that sort of thing.

And here's a graphic from that original publication, which I find a really intriguing.

But this scale has been used by a number of people.

But if we let's see in this next graphic, what you'll see is that we can use things like tree limbs and leaves and other things.

And you see that, I've got two colors here and the red is you don't want to be above about seven to 10 miles an hour, only to be 100% sure that you're not gonna see drift.

And that's not really very windy.

A little bit of rustling in the leaves, but when the twigs, larger twigs start to sway and stuff, if you're out there spraying, you're welcome the invitation for off target placement of whatever you're spraying.

And even with some of our organic chemicals, some of them are non-selective, they can move off site and cause the injury to the plants you want.

So I really liked the scale simply because, and you look and see it, if leaves are wrestling and twigs are starting to blow, you're coming close to that magical 10 miles per hour, and actually the label.

And we're going to mention this a couple of times, the label is your resource for the majority of this, because the label will say, do not spray in temperatures above.

And that's another way drift can be accelerated, is under high temperatures 'cause many of these chemicals do have volatiles in them and they can move, or certain formulations, that are ester formulations can move when it's hot, along with the wind.

So there's a lot of information on the label and that's always your go-to source for credible information because they've done a lot of work to make sure that they don't have off target placement.

It's not that these are these evil empires that don't care what happens, they do.

They don't want bad information about their thing.

But drift, drift does occur.

And when drift does occur, the question is that, is it drift?

And I have a sample here that when you look for drift, especially with broadleaf plant material, like tomatoes and peppers, and our deciduous trees, you usually look for cupping of the leaf, which is evidence of some, what we call epinasty or differential growing.

And so it causes the leaf to cup.

Sometimes it can cup down, sometimes it can cup up, Sometimes it can just be all wavy and funky looking.

Well, when that happens, that could be an indication of drift.

But one of the more common things that happens is that we see aphid injury.

And this is an oak on campus.

And when we look at this oak, we see some very characteristic twirling of the leaves and cupping of the leaves down on the lower portion.

And then even up a little bit higher.

And then some leaves up here that look less effective, which is also an interesting way to identify a pesticide drift, or a off target placement of a chemical.

This is not drift.

This is aphids and aphids make leaves cup, so what do you look for?

Well, if you could feel this at home, this feels very sticky.

And the honeydew and everything is produced by the aphids can be down here.

If you see a lot of ants in the cup, even if you don't see aphids, that's usually an indication that they're in there, doing what they do.

Or if you see a branch like this and then down below or on lower leaves because aphids don't go throughout a tree or a shrub.

And it's sticky down below.

That's probably going to be aphids, and you certainly don't want to say, "Well, I'm gonna sue my neighbor because the aphids came in."

You've got to be very careful about misidentifying.

When we had our recent hot days, especially on that new growth, a lot of plant material showed cupping.

That was just a drought response.

And with almost minor exceptions, because like I said, drift does occur, but nonetheless, there's no reason to immediately assume that something has happened that the farmer down the road or the lawn care operator or you or your spouse, in my case, it would be the spouse, has done something really stupid.

It may not be.

So let's make sure that you don't immediately reach for the, "Oh, it's pesticide spray, it's horrible."

But there are very characteristic things.

I'm going to show a couple of them here.

This is the unaffected branch.

Maybe I should grab the affected one.

- Let me interrupt for one second.

And tell our audience to make sure that you tell us whether you like this kind of comments, discussion, is this subject matter that you really want to hear about?

Of course you like Roch.

We all like what he has to say, because he's so good at it, but make sure you give us that good feedback.

So we're going in the right direction.

And now you may continue.

- Thank you.

This tree has very typical distorted leaves, cupping.

And one of the key identifiers, this one's a little bit dry now, but when you first grabbed this tree, it's got...

It fills leathery.

Rather than succulent, like a tree leaf really feels.

- Like you can't tear it.

- You can't tear it, exactly.

I have better samples here.

So that's actually herbicide injury, but it looked very similar to the aphid, didn't it?

We've got a maple leaf here and here's a healthy maple leaf.

There's no distortion, there's no nothing going on.

It looks pretty happy.

And then immediate above this, I don't have it set upright.

But immediately above this was this one.

That one's definitely cupping.

It has the leathery feel to it, and sometimes the leaves are striated.

You see that little striation in there.

That's often typical of herbicide injury.

If you see spotting, that's more typical of aphid injury, right?

And the cupping that you see when it's drought stricken, usually goes away if water comes back, or sometimes you see it in late afternoon and the next day it goes away, that's generally an indication of a drought response rather than herbicide injury one.

But this is what that maple looks like.

Here's another one that it's less cupped, but still nonetheless, this one has all the characteristics that we would say the leathery feel, the cupping, the turning up in this case.

So, my guess would be this with probably 2,4-D injury, or something like 2,4-D, maybe philox up here or something.

Strictly speculation 'cause unless you take this leaf and analyze it, we're trying to make educated guesses.

And it's a non-discriminatory inflictor.

This is tomatea, and you can see on this one, a fair amount of stuff going on, right?

It's distorted, it's got a little bit of a discoloration.

There's some necrosis showing up, but the question is, is this plant going to be okay?

- Right, that's always the question that we get.

- Can you eat the fruit?

And so I think some of this has flowers on it.

I thought I had some with flowers on it.

There are flowers on this one.

So the opportunity for this leaf to move that material to the fruit is going to be lower when it's not flowering obviously, and higher when the fruit is in its early stages.

So my guesstimate would be that this plant, if the fruit forms, is gonna be fine to eat.

Now, I know that people say, well, there's a reentry level.

Anytime a pesticide is sprayed, it doesn't matter whether it's insecticide, herbicide or fungicide.

There's a re-entry period, right?

So you have this reentry period, so that it's for safety and it's very cautious.

But when they do that, they're talking about a direct, those rules and regulations say that's a direct application, intentionally applied at optimal use rates.

Drift is normally 10 to 20% of the rate, unless it's right next to it.

But if you're talking about airborne particles and of course they get distributed in the wind, and so the rate is just not that high.

So there you go.

So you're not looking at a high enough rate.

And if you were really that concerned about it, you think it's gotten a mega dose or a typical dose, and you don't know the re-entry 'cause you don't know what's been applied.

How would you know what was applied, right?

If you want to be cautious and on the safe side, don't eat the produce.

- Well and we don't recommend eating it.

If you think that target and the injury happened when the fruit was already set.

Beans, tomatoes, whatever, don't eat those.

- Squash, whatever.

Exactly right.

And then the last sample I want to do, and then I've been talking about some ways to alleviate drift.

So our woody species.

The joke is red but if you spray 2,4-D, wait a week, standby a red bud tree and pass gas, then you're going to wrinkle the leaf.

And that's pretty much true, this is our indicator.

Everyone talks about tomatoes being so intolerant, red buds cup all the time.

And this has classical injury.

And I'll show that, I'll pull this leaf off.

But if you look here, look at that, it's cupped.

- Shoestrings.

- Shoestrings.

It's striated, crinkled on the edges.

And even on this branch, you'll see some that starting to desiccate and dry off.

But do you know what the good news is here?

These are the leaves that were affected.

This was probably an earlier lawn application of some broadleaf herbicide, but then these new leaves emerging, do they look affected to you?

- Not a bit.

- They're in great shape.

And as sensitive as red bud is, it's actually...

I'm not suggesting you spray it with 2,4-D, obviously, but it can take a fairly good dose of 2,4-D and not die.

The maple, same thing, trees are extremely resilient.

They can withstand wind and sun and heat and scald and all the things that they do.

They're also relatively resilient.

You want to avoid this for clear reasons, right?

You don't want this kind of injury and stuff going on, but rest assured for the most part, and you're not gonna eat the red bud.

You're not gonna eat the maple leaves, right?

So we're less concerned about non target application or drift onto material that we're not going to eat in the ornamentals.

Some other species, I've seen Rebecca right next to Hosta, and the Hosta has nothing wrong with it.

And the Rebecca is toast.

Yeah, it's just lost, right?

And it doesn't recover.

So once again, this is about care in the environment, making sure you don't do things incorrectly and hoping that you're not near, or close to an invert and application of a pesticide.

So how do we keep drift out?

Well, we said don't spray when it's windy.

That was a little bit tongue in cheek, obviously, but there are other things you can do.

If we use a backpack or excuse me, a pump sprayer like the traditional Hudson.

Not anything against the brand name, but it's a three gallon container, a gallon container.

And you physically pump them up, the tendency is for consumers, to pump it up just pound on it, right?

And get it really, really high.

And then they don't have to pump it again as frequently.

The higher the pressure, the greater the potential for drift.

So my sprayers have a little pressure gauge on them.

And I take them to the pressure that I know will create a droplet.

Fine droplets are created at higher pressure, larger droplets are created at lower pressure, but you certainly don't want it dripping out the end of the wand, right?

So you find the pressure that you want.

And you can buy pressure gauges online, or at least most of the garden stores that go right on the tank, so you know how much is in them.

Trigger sprayers, always deliver it at about the same rate.

Now let's talk about the nozzle, right?

All of them have nozzles, right?

And you can open it wide open and squirt this thing that will squirt across the room.

We could have fun with that, with water, right?

We could, but when you think about it, if you automize it and you take it to that really spray one and you're standing up fully erect, it just goes and how much of it actually hits the leaf?

Take a look at that sometimes.

So you make a coarser spray and it hits a leaf, or you get closer to the plant material when you spray.

It's pretty simple.

Or you wipe it on with a paintbrush.

There's a number of things you can do to minimize drift.

But even if you're gonna use those sprayers, don't over pump.

The backpack sprayers that have the single handle, they actually regulate relatively well, because you can't really overly pump them, right?

You just keep on pumping while-- - It's the ones that you go like this.

- It's he one on the tops that that works up.

And then finally drift is a real, we know that.

We see it's not as catastrophic as many people think, especially with our non edibles.

It can cause some injury, but we see it almost every year on campus, on redbuds and not because of a lack of care by the people managing the landscape.

Simply because once again, redbuds are so susceptible.

We see it in home gardens right next to lawns where they've got a garden kind of thing.

And it's right next to lawns, we see it there.

Just be careful, read the label, pay attention to the wind.

And I think you'll be fine.

- And Roch is absolutely right about all of those.

Because if you do that, you are not going to send us quite so many questions on Backyard Farmer about, what's wrong with my tree?

And we have to come back and say, oh, well, it's this or that.

Unfortunately that is all the time we do have for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

We want to say thanks to Roch, of course, for coming in and talking to us today.

And next time we'll be back with another in-depth discussion.

Do be sure to watch Backyard Farmer live every Thursday at 7:00 PM central on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks for digging deeper with Backyard Farmer.

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