This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Accidental poisoning of tree
Dear fellow gardeners,
When using Resolva Xtra Tough on a nearby stump, some accidentally spilled into the soil.
The next day i noticed my previously-thriving silver birch tree was beginning to look very droopy. It has now been two days and the situation is looking worse.
It has since rained - i do not know if that is a help or a hindrance. The soil is heavy clay with some topsoil.
Is there anything I can do to help my tree?
0
Posts
The Resolva Xtra Tough range contains glyphosate.
Glyphosate can cause cancer. Should be banned.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GTARW.php
Last edited: 26 June 2017 22:31:32
How big is the silver birch?
How far away from the stump is it?
how much was spilled?
Thank you for your replies.
The stump was about 4ft away. It is very likely the birch had roots nearby. The birch is about 4-5m tall, circa 12years old.
The product you have used contains the active ingredients glyphosphate and d-glucopyranose oligomeric decyl octyl glycosides (which I think is there just to make the glyphosphate stick as it were i.e. a wetting agent).
As said above glyphosphate is broken down on contact with the soil and becomes inactive so will not harm your birch.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
glyphosate only work in contact with green leaves, and deactivates on anything else (soil, wood, paving etc.)
so it won't have worked on the stump (for that you need stump and brushwood killer - SBK or short)
it will have had no effect on the tree at all, so unless you sprayed the entire tree the weed killer is not to blame
Thank you all for your replies.
Perhaps something else has upset the tree...
We dug out a mature Red Robin shrub which was in close vicinity earlier on the same day as using the Resolva on another stump nearby.
It wasn't a particularly big hole although we did come across one root from the birch. Maybe this is what has upset the tree, rather than the Resolva?
Sadly the tree branches continue droop further.
I hope over time the tree will heal.
that sounds like the answer there, most trees don't like their roots being messed around with, particularly in the weather we've had recently.
Whenever glyphosate is mentioned you always say it can cause cancer so how many people have got cancer from using glyphosate?