Garden not growing - looking sick and dying?
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on โ14-02-2021 01:07 PM
Some time in October last year, a batch of commercial compost left a Suez recycling facility in Melbourne, bound for garden centres in central Victoria and Melbourne.
Within days, it had been combined into soil mixes, and sold to backyard gardeners planting their summer veggie crops.
Within weeks, many of those crops were dying.
More than 200 Victorian gardeners noticed they lost vegetable crops after composting
They claim commercial compost from a Suez recycling facility is the culpritThe Environment Protection Authority has investigated and passed the matter onto Consumer Affairs Victoria
More here -
All that effort gone to waste - shameful
Re: Garden not growing - looking sick and dying?
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on โ14-02-2021 04:12 PM
My new interest in gardening is shouting inside me "Shameful indeed!".
The laboratories performing the tests need to be able to pick up even those low traces of herbicide, since the effect is devastating even at such low levels.
Re: Garden not growing - looking sick and dying?
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on โ14-02-2021 04:19 PM
It doesn't state the concentrate was ' low ' - it only states - even at ' low ' levels - disastrous.
The garden damage has prompted an Environment Protection Authority probe, and tests from Suez.
Experts believe the Suez compost was contaminated with a powerful herbicide that somehow wasn't removed in the composting process.
It wasn't picked up in testing, but even at low concentration it can have a devastating impact on gardens.
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on โ14-02-2021 04:39 PM
Yes, it's mostly a matter of inference that some of the compost probably has low levels of the herbicide. It is stated, though, that some of the tests found traces (meaning low levels), while others didn't - but that some of the testing labs can't detect traces below a certain level.
โBoth Suez and the Victorian Environment Protection Authority have been investigating the cluster of complaints, and have commissioned soil tests by the independent lab SESL.
Some samples have found traces of the herbicide, while others have not.
Clare's garden centre in central Victoria has written to its customers saying soil samples have come back clear. Suez also says testing shows its organic compounds are in line with EPA standards.
But it's not that simple.
SESL's senior soil scientist in Victoria Declan McDonald said the herbicide can cause problems in concentrations as low as a few parts per billion, which is too low for some labs to detect.โ
(Rubrication mine.)
Ideally, I suppose, in those samples where no traces were found, further testing in a lab capable of detecting ultra-low concentrations of a few parts per billion is called for. That would be definitive evidence.
Re: Garden not growing - looking sick and dying?
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on โ14-02-2021 05:15 PM
It can only be said - let's hope it kills the produce - before it can be brought to the table.
I'd be checking.
Re: Garden not growing - looking sick and dying?
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on โ18-02-2021 09:19 AM
Re: Garden not growing - looking sick and dying?
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on โ18-02-2021 08:29 PM
It's a mutant.......run for your lives
Seriously, it doesn't look too good, have you used any of the pesticide mentioned?

