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Accidental application of Pathclear to runner bean plants
Winterlude
Posts: 5
in Talkback
We sprayed our runner bean plants when they were quite young, with what we thought was fairy liquid solution, to kill greenfly, but we now think it was last year's Pathclear in the sprayer. Now, a couple of weeks later, the leaves halfway up the stems have gone variegated green & yellow. Will the runner beans be safe to eat? If we pull up the plants in order to start again, do we have to wait two years before it is safe to plant in that area? We have lettuces and sugarsnap peas growing adjacent to the runner beans - are they safe to eat?
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Oh dear - so much wrong with this.
If it was Weedol Pathclear the beans will die. In any event I would not eat anything that had been sprayed with a herbicide.
How close are the lettuces and peas to the beans - did they get any of the weedkiller on them? If they did they'll die or at the very least look poorly. If they do then I wouldn't eat them either.
Pathclear contains an ingredient that will stop new seeds sprouting and will kill plants in the soil for a period of at least 3 months. However, as you sprayed the bean plants and not the soil, there might not be much residue in the soil. You could take up the beans and try sowing some quickly germinating seeds to see what happens.
Good basic gardening practice
Good luck
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I would think nearby crops would be safe to eat. If the crops have survived, they can't have taken up much of the chemicals.
Thanks Dovefromabove and Verdun. Yes, I know we went a bit wobbly there. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, so we'll scrap the beans. Lettuces and peas look healthy. Very unlikely the weedkiller spray got to them - they were tiny at the time. However, we'll give it more thought. They may have to go too. As for whether any spray got on the soil - well, it's quite likely, although I would guess a very small drift.
Thanks Green Magpie. That's encouraging. Cheers.
It's very easily done Andy ....
I now have 3 large plant sprayers - one for weedkiller, one for fungicide (sorry - had to resort to chemical help this season for box blight - not proud of the fact
) and one for liquid feeding. They are all clearly marked with red, blue and green insulating tape respectively (I find even permanent ink tends to fade or wash off with time).
It's nearly impossible to wash every last trace of weedkiller out of every last nook and cranny of a weedkiller sprayer every time it's used. I also find that keeping a bit of the chemical made up and stored in a dark, cool place means I am more likely to zap weeds while they are small. Suggest you use the weedkiller sprayer for nothing else and maybe invest in a second sprayer for other products.
Hope the other veg are ok
Remove top couple of inches of soil replace with new or compost re sow and all is well
my neighbour was a bit heavy handed with weed killer & it drifted on to my runners a few of the leaves curled up & died I just cut them off & continued growing resulted in good plants & crop of beans don't know which weed killer she used but I'm here to tel the tale
I honestly think that if the plants are not affected enough to prevent cropping, it's very unlikely that there would be any harm in consuming them. Things that kill plants aren't necessarily harmful to humans, and things that fail to kill plants are not going to be present in the crop at any significant level anyway, let alone do any harm to anyone who eats the crop.