Roadside Herbicide Spraying Not Always Harmful

[Paul Cherubini]

Around March 1 I took the following photos of the roadside herbicide spraying that was going on in and around the Sierra Nevada mountains foothill town of Placerville, Calif.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/spray.jpg
http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78 ... sprayb.jpg

At the time of this spraying the roadside fascicularis milkweed was still dormant and hadn't sent up any shoots yet so was not directly hit with the spray. However, some herbicides can poison the soil and prevent new weed shoots from coming up.

Recently I visited these same sprayed roadsides again and was pleased to see healthy and vigorous new milkweed shoots were coming up out of the treated ground:

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78 ... eherba.jpg
http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78 ... oegerb.jpg
http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78 ... erherb.jpg

Take home lesson: roadside spraying isn't necessary seriously harmful to milkweed IF it is conducted early in the season before the milkweed has emerged from the ground.

[Wyvern]

Milkweed in general is pretty resilient to poisoning even very blunt direct poisoning. I had common milkweed growing in a garden bed. For a few years it behaved itself. Then one year it decided to send runner roots way out into the middle of the yard and throw up stalks there. As an experiment, I took a syringe and filled it with stump-b-gone and injected it into the stalks of the shoots in the middle of the yard. The plant was definitely affected by it. Leaves shriveled up and plant dies. Apparently the poison then followed the runner roots back to the main plant and affected those stalks as well..they shriveled up, but did not actually die off..just nasty looking. The next spring, the middle of the yard stalk did not come back, but the main stalks did come though they were stunted and the leaves shriveled and ugly looking. The 2nd spring, same thing, but not as stunted. The 3rd year, stalks were normal size again and the leaves had lost almost all signs of curling.

[Mona Miller]

I wonder if those deformed plants/leaves still had herbicide in them.

[Wyvern]

I got the impression that the roots were holding residual traces of the poison hence why the plants were stunted/shriveled the next year but each year after that got progressively better looking. The past 3 years the plants show no traces of the poisoning and have begun their expansion again. The funny thing is when the milkweed started throwing runner roots out again... they stayed close to confines of the garden area and did NOT go out towards the middle of the yard again...guess they learned their lesson. lol

[Mona Miller]

Plants are smarter than we will ever know.

[James Price]

Generalized, broadcast, untargeted roadside spraying is always harmful. Always. It is much less effective than carefully scheduled mowing at determined heights, which can suppress early-emerging invasives to the advantage of native plant species without harming ground-nesting birds and beneficial insects. Early spraying may not do great harm to late-emerging milkweed, but it may suppress or kill asters, goldenrods and other species that monarchs would depend on later in the year. Roadside spraying should be used only on identified and targeted colonies of invasive species such as teasel, white clover, reed canary grass and wild parsnip. Anybody who says that wholesale spraying of roadsides or anywhere else at any time for any reason is ill-informed. Invasive species always return to treated areas because by their nature they are opportunistic and adventive. It is a zero-sum game. The encouragement of native species can help to form a denser matrix of biomass that can suppress invasives. The use of herbicides is not by its nature unthinkable, but common sense warrants that it should be used wisely and conservatively and only on identified colonial incursions of invasive, exotic species. Period.

[Paul Cherubini]

Here's a followup photo to my original post that shows how a roadside that was sprayed with herbicide in April is lush and green three months later with milkweed and other weeds plus has a monarch nectaring on the milkweed:

[blazing star]

A monarch nectaring at a milkweed plant is not evidence that roadside herbicide spraying is not always harmful.

[Mona Miller]

And, if you look closely at the picture of that Monarch nectaring, I can't tell whether the Monarch has been photoshopped in. My kids use Adobe Photoshop. They also take digital video and edit that, too.

[Paul Cherubini]

And, if you look closely at the picture of that Monarch nectaring, I can't tell whether the Monarch has been photoshopped in.

Here are full sized photos that show my monarch photo was not altered or pasted in with any photo editing program and also shows how healthy the milkweed is (numerous white colored flower heads) despite the fact the ground the milkweed is growing in was sprayed with Transline roadside herbicide in March:

[Mona Miller]

What is the difference? We can't tell. What we do know is what Ba Rea so perfectly wrote:

"Paul is brilliant, with an incredible wealth of information about monarchs, which I deeply respect. [But, for several years his data is not trustworthy.] But he loves controversy, accusation and setting up interesting red herrings even more. He regularly blurs lines of truth (usually by omission of important information so that he can stand back and let us do the damage) in order to attack scientists, support his theses or defend HIS work as an insect exterminator." [I think she hit it straight on the nail head.]

http://basrelief.org/Pages/ba.html
In case you are curious, who Ba is I have posted her website.