Sean,
Very sorry about the damage inflicted on your trees. From your pic, the inside of the branch looked very healthy. That’s a good sign. Hpoefully it is only leave damage.
If I were you, I would cut a small sample from the same tree again next week to see if the inside continues to looks this healthy.
Wow, you got a like- must be a sadist to like those pictures:wink:
No, I wasn’t suggesting violence, just litigation, if it is needed (thank God for civilization). If the guy is lying you should make him pay for that, IMO. If he can back up his story than I would try to forgive, but get fair compensation. Liars deserve punitive damages.
Like was for sharing updated pics .
It looks to me like he used too much captan. If he was spraying different species that would be easy to do. 2 1/5 TBS per gallon of apples, 1 1/10 TBS per 1 1/2 gallons for grapes, 1 1/3 TBS per gallon for Apricots and 1 2/3 TBS per 2 gallons of water for plums. (from the label on the bottle, don’t quote me, easy to get confused) Have no idea what rate to spray for pluots or apriums. I don’t have a 1/5 tablespoon or a 1/10 tablespoon. It would have been easy to just put 2 1/2 to 3 TBS per gallon and spray everything. I like to mix up a gallon and spray all my stone fruits. Can’t do that with captan. If he had a little left over probably went back and sprayed the middle of the trees to not “waste” the chemical. I noticed on some of the pictures the end of the branches looked better than the middle. Putting out too much chemical than label is illegal and he probably will not admit that, I would be tempted not to admit it.
I also didn’t like captan because according to reports it did not do well with brown rot.
This entire thread is just sad to me. I can’t even begin to imagine… (Heck I have one State Fair Apple tree that’s dying and I’m sick about it!)
The spray guy from the co-op was out here the other day to spray my fields with the big dedicated articulating wing sprayer in advance of the corn being planted. I had him skip the field right by my garden and peach and cherry bushes/trees as the wind was in the wrong direction.
I told him with corn prices lucky to hit $3 this year, there’s not enough money in that field to risk the drift. I’m now looking out at weeds in the field but am still very happy with the decision. Too much time and effort goes into fruit trees and gardening.
Really hope things turn out better than you think Sean.
Who would I report this to?
Update: So i was told that the products used were Captan, Pyganic, and the Surfucant was called AirTech by winfield. i have been told that i was the first person they have ever used this Airtech surfucant on and that the rep that sold the sprayer this product had told them it was compatible with captan. So the rep has contacted me because he wants to come to my place to meet me and oberve the trees. Sounds like this is becoming a circus
Apparently there was never a tissue sample done of my trees, the sprayer just sent a picture to cornell who told them it looks like spray burn.
Thoughts?
Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me. And having the sales rep come by also sounds like a good idea. Let him see what happened. It sounds like they’ll make it right as much as possible. I’d be way more concerned and upset if no one was showing interest or taking responsibility.
Compensation is really little consolation but it’s all you can hope for at this point.
I think you should do some research on this surfactant. As far as I can tell it is only for use with herbicides and is in no way labeled for use in mixes for spraying fruit trees. This is what I came up with after trying for 10 minutes.
That surfactant contains ammonium sulfate. That’s what you add to herbicide mixes like Roundup to increase herbicide uptake by the plant. Doesn’t sound like the right thing to add to a contact fungicide.
It does say “pesticide” and “agricultural”, but it’s overall a very vaguely written label.
I don’t even know what to think anymore…its such a blatant display of negligence, But nobody is owning up to it. The sprayer is blaming the sales rep, now I have to meet this sales rep at my house on Friday, and have to listen to his BS. I mean what am I even trying to accomplish at this point. My trees are shot for the season. (I believe they will live). Do I want money from them? How much do I even deserve? Is it even worth the fight? I just wish it never happened, and I wish somebody would eat a little piece of humble pie and tell me they messed up and that they’re sorry.
Alan, I started researching on the internet, and I realized I’m in over my head, I don’t have the necessary experience in the field to even understand half of the stuff I’m reading. I’m a quick learner, but not quite an armchair chemist yet.
I would bet everything I own that this new surfactant they used “AirTech” was the cause of the problem. I don’t know why it made the leaves burn, but for some reason, it did
Sean
Alan and Fruitnut hit the nail on the head. This product is labeled for herbicide use! It should not have been used on fruit trees.
I’m assuming your applicator has some form of pesticide license. He knows its a violation of law to apply any pesticide in a way that does not comply with the label. Its not a valid excuse, but perhaps he accepted the salesman’s recommendation and failed to read the label carefully. If the salesman suggested its use on fruit trees and has a license, he should loose it too. It is in everyone’s best interest to report these violations to the proper authority and let them take the proper action.
I expect the pesticide enforcement folks in your state would be interested in your problem. Here is a link that may help you get started
Ammonium sulfate is a strong fertilizer. By strong I mean it can burn the roots of blueberries if applied at high concentration. With a herbicide some leaf burn is OK but even then you don’t want to kill the leaf before the herbicide translocates into the plant tissues. I don’t know if that’s the issue.
Bhill is right that there really is no way, if the label I supplied is the one they were working from, that either of these idiots should have risked using this stuff in the manner they did. It is inexcusable and I would certainly consider reporting the incident to help stop them from doing such damage to anyone else. However, I can understand why you would rather just say FU and FU and move on with your life as there is no meaningful compensation they can provide for you.
Even if the material itself didn’t burn the leaves, it was designed to be used with herbicides and not as an all-purpose surfactant so it could easily have multiplied the phytotoxic properties of Captan. I believe they violated the law and you might want to bring that up with the NYDEC pesticide division if they cannot produce a label that states that it can be used for the purpose that they used it for.
I kind of feel sorry for the sprayer. Almost all of us thought he was probably lying,(including me) but apparently he has told the truth. The sales rep said it was compatible with Captan. When sprayer saw the problem he took full responsibility. He went to the person that sold it to him, and they are sending out a sales rep. to see how bad the damage is. If it was used outside the recommendation I don’t think they would send out someone. I understand he refunded the money for the spray job. He lost money the job and probably a customer. Now people are calling for his license. Mistakes happen. That is why I would not work for the public in applying pesticides. And no, I have not sold or applied herbicide to anyone for money.
Yes Sean I would be sick and mad if this happened to me. At least you apparently have an honest sprayer that is not trying to hide something. If he is a bad sprayer then a few jobs like this will put him out of business. It can be tough to keep up with all the labels and many times you take the salesman work on something like surfactant. Everyone appears to be trying to find out what went wrong so it will not happen to someone else. This is actually a good thing.
By the way, last year I burned the roots on a couple of new Springhigh Blueberries by using ammonium sulfate At first I thought they needed more fertilizer and of course made it worse. They are still alive but I came close to killing them. I still use ammonium sulfate but now I know what the leaves look like and use less.
Alan makes a good point about the label. The label is the law. Perhaps another label allows for the application of this material to fruit trees. If so, the applicator must have that label in his possession in order to apply the product to the fruit trees.
I have seen special local needs labels made available for tough problems like SWD or BMSB. Probably not the case here, but might be. If so, the applicator must have this special or alternate label in his possession. Here is an example on a special label for control of BMSB in NC last year:
Its very sad this happened. Its terrible for the fruit grower and unfortunate for the applicator. It should not be happening! Its the second time I have seen a member of this forum suffer as a result of pesticides applied by someone else. Wonder how common the problem is nationwide?
I don’t know about NY, but the TN Dept of agriculture has a whole division just to deal with pesticide and herbacide sprays and spraying errors like yours. You really ought to consider reporting it to them, if nothing else it will be a great way to find out exactly what happened- for FREE. The TN spray people came to my place and took over 100 samples and had a report generated on every single one of them. They identified every chemical present, what quantities, and even had a column showing whether or not that amount was above or below “standard application rates”. They also will (my state did anyway) contact your sprayer and interview him, test his equipment, etc. THey took samples from tanks, tested sprayer for droplet size it creates, and so on. If nothing else, it would certainly alert your spray guy how serious all this is, and would most certainly put him in a mood to reach a settlement with you. If he violated label or other laws, he’ll also get fined. They will also almost certainly talk to the provider of the product, especially if it is new. ANd again, it will show them how serious this is and make them want to reach a settlement with you. All this will be done by the state and require almost nothing from you-or thats how it was here.
BTW…I have a nice little spreadsheet that I used to calculate an amount per tree valuation for my trees and I’ll email it to you if you want it. There was some disagreement among people here about what should and should have been included in the valuation and how much various inputs are worth, but it still provides a good basis and starting point for calculating damages and you can decide for yourself if you want to make changes. Send me a private message with your email if you want it. Either way, contacting the state probably is good idea for you and other possible victims of this spray guy and/or this new product.
Sean,
I am sorry you are having to deal with this. I can understand it may seem overwhelming.
I’m hesitant to risk another guess at what’s going on. At first I thought it was Captan burn, but then never had seen it that bad and thought it was some form of residual herbicide damage. Now it may be Captan burn due to the surfactant used.
It would be interesting to know what level of ammonium sulfate is in the surfactant. As Fruitnut mentioned, ammonium sulfate is frequently used in herbicides. I add it when spraying glyphosate.
I’ve never sprayed it on fruit trees, but apparently even by itself it can burn foliage. The following passage indicates it is more prone to burn foliage than urea when used as a foliar in wheat. That tells me it may easily burn foliage because even urea can burn foliage if used at a very high rate.
“Selecting appropriate sources of inorganic fertilizer for foliar sprays is not only important for uptake efficiency but also for foliage burning. Considerable differences have been reported among fertilizer sources in burning foliage with foliar application of inorganic fertilizers, especially N (Phillips and Mullins,2004). Phillips and Mullins (2004) reported that any foliar N solution applied to cereal plants may result in visual damage described as leaf “scorching”,“burning”, or “tipping” even at low rates of N application (15 kg ha−1) (Goodingand Davies, 1992). The risk of foliage burning is more likely when the N source is something other than urea, such as ammonium nitrate or ammonium sulfate(Alkier et al., 1972).”
Alan also has a good point that sometimes these things can have synergistic effects when it comes to burning foliage (phytotoxicity).
Foliar urea is a different form from that made for ground application because of the phytotoxic affect of the less expensive and less refined form.