Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

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Paulatic
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by Paulatic »

It would help to know what they were spraying.
I.e. Was it a crop or was it newly drilled or was it lying fallow?
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Psamathe
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by Psamathe »

Paulatic wrote:It would help to know what they were spraying.
I.e. Was it a crop or was it newly drilled or was it lying fallow?

It was on bare soil (ploughed and harrowed). So may or may not have been planted (I don't know the history of the field). I had assumed it had been planted but that is no more than assumption.

So nothing growing (showing above the surface), prepared and worked so not left fallow.

Ian
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Paulatic
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by Paulatic »

I wonder if it can be some slug spray then ? The sort you put on with a watering can in the garden. Safer to wildlife, perhaps, than pellets.
Ploughed and harrowed suggests seeds have been sown.
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HizerKite
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by HizerKite »

Hi and sorry to revive a very old thread but just wondered, did you ever find out what the spray was?

Have just been outside and there was a crop sprayer spraying a green mist onto a bare earth field - it smelt of oil (a bit like creosote)

I beathed a lot of it in and am hoping is nothing nasty

Regards
Richard
Psamathe
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by Psamathe »

HizerKite wrote: 15 Oct 2021, 2:34pm Hi and sorry to revive a very old thread but just wondered, did you ever find out what the spray was?

Have just been outside and there was a crop sprayer spraying a green mist onto a bare earth field - it smelt of oil (a bit like creosote)

I beathed a lot of it in and am hoping is nothing nasty

Regards
Richard
(Not the person raising it but) I've come across that stuff before. The smell is strong in that you don't have to cycle through clouds of it but can smell it some distance away. No idea what it is.

Other stuff I remember is white clouds and you taste saccharin/sweet on your lips after being caught in the stuff.

Ian
colin54
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by colin54 »

It may be 'Roundup' (Glyphosate). I watch 'Harry's Farm' on youtube, in this episode Harry explains what Roundup does and why it's used (weed suppression), allied to not ploughing the ground to bury weeds, but scratching the surface and then spraying - a less costly operation in terms of diesel usage (as I understand it ).
Explanation occurs about 9 minutes in, but it's all interesting.
I've been watching these for a couple of years now, he talks you through the the choices he makes
when deciding which crops to plant in the following season, and takes you through the year to harvest.
Recommended watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amupVuMeFvo&t=312s
Here's a Guardian article from 2019 about Roundup.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... mers-suing
Just by the by. I was riding past a field a month or so back when there was muck spreading being carried out, I pulled up to let the tractor get up the field a bit - not quite long enough as it turned out, I rode into a slight (but enough) bit of aerosol remnants of the spray in the air ( I'll spare you the easy pun there ). Clue ; by the smell of it it was waste from a two legged mammal.... My clothes went straight into the washing machine when I got in, the joys of the countryside. :)
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Mike Sales
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by Mike Sales »

]In my youth I worked for a few weeks for a firm which sprayed the crops by helicopter.
My job was to stand at the end of the field in a hiviz wescoat to give the pilot a mark to aim for. We had to count the rows for spacing. One had to look lively when the chopper turned short at your end, to give a mark but then get out of the way.
Even in those less H&S days we were someimes warned to keep out of the way of particular chemicals.
The pilots used to shuffle under amazingly low telephone wires. There was occasionally a crash.
French Alouettes if memory serves.
More recently I have seen signs on potato fields warning of acid. I imagine dilute acid is sprayed to get rid of the haulm (stalks, stems and leaves) before harvesting.
I have caught a mist of what I imagined was water, from elaborate automatic irrigation rigs, whilst out on the bike.
Smoke from stubble burning is another hazard.

Edit. I have searched and discovered my memory does not serve me well: the Alouette is rather bigger.
This looks like it.
helicopter.jpg
helicopter.jpg (17.91 KiB) Viewed 300 times
helicopter spraying.jpg
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colin54
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Re: Crop Spraying (Question & Comment)

Post by colin54 »

Here's the latest Harry's Farm video. More about Roundup use. Harry also talks about the massive rise in Nitrate fertiliser (adds nitrogen to the ground) prices due to the gas shortage, slug pellets, wheat seed drilling, soil conditions and guidance systems for tractors amongst other things. Very interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY4ZFPVt8pM
23 minutes long
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