Ep. 216 Chemical Trespass in Illinois: How Herbicides Are Impacting Native Trees and Ecosystems | #GoodGrowing - Good Growing

Episode Transcript
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Chris (00:06):
Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith the University of Illinois
Extension coming at you from MacOmb, Illinois, and we have got a
great show for you today. What'swrong with my oaks? I've been
getting that question for thelast few years, and we might
shine some light on what'shappening in Illinois with some
of our oaks and other trees outthere. And, you know, I'm not

(00:27):
doing this by myself.
I am happy to be joined thisweek by horticulture educator
Emily Zweihardt in Milan, or asI like to say, Milan, Illinois.
Emily, welcome to the show.

Emily (00:37):
Hi, Chris. Good to see you. And yes, Milan, Milan,
wherever. Happy to be here. Thisis a really interesting topic
that our colleague brought tous.
I am really excited to besitting in on this one. I think
there's gonna be some moments,maybe, for some folks. I know at
least reading through thisarticle and having some of the
pre discussions really opened myeyes to some some things we

(01:01):
suspected, but maybe we'll havesome more clarity on after this
conversation. So looking forwardto it.

Chris (01:07):
As am I. This report that came out, it is 94 pages, and we
will leave a link to that belowin the show notes if folks want
to dive into the data. It's agood long read, but we will have
that available to you if youwanna dive into it. But we are
going to bring on our specialguest for today who is going to

(01:30):
help us parse out some of thisinformation in this report,
horticulture educator, RyanPankow in Champaign, or as I
like to say, Champagna,Illinois. Hi, Ryan.
Welcome to the show.

Ryan (01:42):
Hey. Thanks for having me on. I'm glad to hear that
Champaign has a fancy name too.Yes. That's pretty cool.

Chris (01:48):
It's I I try to just, you know, spread the love out
everywhere. I when I went toCarbondale, champagne Urbana was
always shampoo banana. It's justwords are weird in my brain. So
that's but yes, the the finestof champagnas. Ryan, thank you
for being on the show today todiscuss this report.

(02:11):
And it's yeah, it's gonna we'rewe're gonna do a dive on this.
So I'm excited to do it.

Emily (02:17):
Yeah. So let's just get into it because there is a lot
to discuss, and we don't reallywant this to turn into a two
hour discussion. We'll try tolimit ourselves even though
that'd be fun. First, let's I'mgonna just read the title of the
article that or the study thatyou sent. So it's Understanding
the Extent and Consequences ofChemical Trespass for Illinois
Ecosystems.

(02:39):
So before we get into the study,I like to take an opportunity to
look at the bigger picturebefore diving into some details.
We know the ecosystems and thelandscape is not interacting
with us or with each other insilos. And so as we're talking
about ecosystems in Illinois,Brian, could you give us kind of

(02:59):
a high level view of what theIllinois landscape is, maybe how
it's evolved since humaninteraction, especially, like,
when it comes to the agrarianlifestyle that we we have been
living in for, you know, ahundred years or so? Like, what
is it what does Illinois looklike?

Ryan (03:18):
Yeah. Sure. And, I mean, it has an interesting land use
history if we look at it acrossthe last several hundred years
of, you know, real, know,European human settlement, where
we wanna say, like, how thelandscape has changed in just
modern times, where, you know,pre settlement, if we wanna call
it that, before kind ofEuropeans came across and, you

(03:41):
know, occupied this entirecontinent. Really, Illinois'
history was driven by glacialhistory. You guys probably know
this, that we had, you know,periods of glaciers that really
kinda scrubbed the surface ofthe state flat and clean.
And after those glaciersreceded, then, you know, I'm
kinda I'm really covering a lotof years with just a few

(04:02):
sentences here, but,essentially, Prairie dominated
our landscape because it wasflat plains, because of some,
you know, the there was someweather anomalies that caused
grasses to get expanded toIllinois. So we're part of
what's called the PrairiePeninsula that kind of extends
into Illinois of TallgrassPrairie. But, we what we saw was

(04:22):
a mosaic though of forest andprairie with forest kind of in
some of our drainage areas andin lower areas and most of the
plains occupied by prairievegetation. And that is what
gave us just some of the bestsoils in the world in this state
and across the Midwest in theseprairie regions. Those prairie
plants put a lot of organicmatter down into the root, their

(04:44):
root system, which roots die anddecompose, and that added a lot
of organic matter to the soil.
So we see, you know, soils likethe Drummer Silty Clayloom, our
state soil. Some of us looked atthat at last hort team in
service the field and in soilsamples, but resulting in, you
know, 19 inches of topsoil in,in that case, in a lot of places

(05:06):
with Drummer, and that's justphenomenal crop growing soil. So
for the last hundred years orso, this Illinois landscape has
been dominated by agriculture.And, you know, in more modern
times here, the last, you know,fifty plus years, it's been
really intensive row cropagriculture. And we've seen, you
know, the numbers are verynumbers of original prairie are

(05:29):
very low, like less than 1% ofthe original prairie remains.
And so we've replaced that arealargely with agriculture. I
think some of it's probably wentto urban sprawl and human
expansion, and I've always, youknow, around Champaign Urbana,
there's really great examples ofthat, of just some of this
really awesome farmland beingpaved over with neighborhoods

(05:51):
and spaces that, you know, wehumans need to exist. So that
that's happened too. So for avariety of reasons, we've went
from the, you know, we're calledthe Prairie State, went from the
Prairie State to the Crop Stateor the Agriculture State or
whatever you want to call usnowadays. But I guess we still
go by the Prairie State.
But that's kind of a summary. Idon't know. Were there other

(06:12):
aspects of land use historyy'all were interested in
discussing here?

Chris (06:17):
Ryan, that was a good synopsis. Now I know your
background is with forestry,with USDA, and I always thought
it was amazing when a foresteror even someone who knows a lot
about prairie ecosystems whenthey can walk into a landscape
and they can kind of read whathas happened. So Illinois, I

(06:38):
mean, we're the Prairie State,Southern Illinois, lots of
forests. Then there was a lot oflogging that occurred, correct,
when Europeans first first camein to settle this area?

Ryan (06:48):
Yeah. And so there there's very little of Illinois that was
not logged, you know, or cutover. And that was probably, you
know, mid eighteen hundreds toearly nineteen hundreds is where
it just that that's a reallyimportant thing to understand.
Like, lots of our forces forestswere cleared. Southern Illinois,
which remains really hilly.
And if you haven't visitedSouthern Illinois ever, it's

(07:09):
mind blowing. It is a differentlandscape. And that shows you
the difference between theglaciated, you know, northern
part of the state and centralpart of the state and the
unglaciated south part of thestate. You know, there's a big
difference. There's still hillsand hollers and trees and all
that stuff.
But some of that early, youknow, clearing of the forest to
Southern Illinois was foragriculture. And what we found

(07:31):
was compared in that andremember those those areas never
were under prairie cover. Sothey don't have that 19 inches
of topsoil and just all thisgreat productivity. A forest
soil has about two to fourinches of topsoil. And when you
clear off the trees and startplowing it to farm it, all that
washes downhill.
And so what folks found is a lotof that farming didn't pan out

(07:55):
in Southern Illinois, and weactually have some really eroded
soils down there that werereforested. And, you know, the
biggest effort in thatreforestation that I think of
happened around the time of theCivilian Conservation Corps, and
that was, you know, followingthe depression, it was a way to
get folks employed to thegovernment to do these
conservation projects. And oneof those was tree planting

(08:17):
across Southern Illinois. Andyou can see a lot of hilltop
pine stands are some of theremnants of that. Hardwood trees
were planted as well, but I feellike in my mind those pine
stands were a big band aid forthe most eroded spots, and pine
trees can handle some of thoseharsh conditions.
And that's what was whetherthat's true or not, that's how

(08:38):
I've always thought about it.That and so, now fast forward to
today, the Shawnee NationalForest is actually looking at
getting rid of those pinestands. Those are some of the
first things that they're tryingto manage and get hardwoods back
in because they're non nativepines. Like we really we got one
tiny little chunk, of somenative, short leaf pine in

(08:58):
Southern Illinois, but reallythat's about it. So, so yeah, a
lot of our woodlands are havebeen harvested, have been, you
know, I I would always say as aforester, not managed.
So, and by that, I mean, therewasn't a plan. We might have
taken trees out and sold themfor timber or firewood or

(09:19):
whatever for whatever reason,but there wasn't this long term
plan that a forester like me,that that was my job with USDA,
was to help you as a landownerwrite a plan for sustainable
harvest and diversity of treesand all the things that you try
and manage for. And so that'swhat we see is just the majority
of our forested areas areunmanaged, and have been so for

(09:42):
the last several hundred years.But by unmanaged, I don't mean
there wasn't human impacts inthere. I just mean it wasn't
planned with good forestry inmind.

Emily (09:50):
Yes. I was gonna say basically the same thing Chris
said, which is like that's abrilliant description, and it
lays a foundation for us now totalk about those spaces because
those unmanaged, notuninfluenced tracks of land are
now a lot of the recreationspaces that we still, you know,
are using as a public that areavailable to most folks and were

(10:13):
the subject of this study. So,again, before we get into the
details of the study, it talksabout chemical trespass. We
should probably define that forfolks before we really get into
the details. So do you mindgiving another brilliant

(10:33):
description?
No pressure. Yeah. Well, I meanWhat is chemical yeah. What is
chemical trespass?

Ryan (10:39):
Without getting too brilliant, I mean, it's really
pesticide drift is what we'retalking about, or or in this
case, specifically herbicidedrift is most of what the damage
is we're seeing. And so that'swhere in this, you know, ag
dominated landscape, it isactually, I mean, just essential
to spray pesticides onagricultural crops to get the

(11:00):
production system in place andproduction level that we expect
today. We can't produce, youknow, we can't farm without
these chemicals. And so overtime, as more of those have been
employed in this agriculturalsystem, they're going other
places than just the crop fieldsaround them. And so I know some

(11:21):
of my interest in this topic isjust from all the folks that
call me and have these typeproblems are presenting, you
know, showing me plant problemsthat are similar to what we
would see caused by herbicidedamage.
So chemical trespass is kind ofthe other word for this, but
that's essentially what we'retalking about is pesticide drift

(11:43):
in one form or another as achemical that's trespassing
across a property line. And, youknow, in most all cases, it's
absolutely unintended. It's notlike there's no one out there
that's doing this on purpose.But, the fact of the matter is
this chemical is crossing aproperty line where it's not
intended to be.

Emily (12:02):
And it can cross this trespass can occur kind of in
three different ways. Right? Itcan be wind carried just at the
time of application. It can becarried, you know, with wind
speeds that are able totransport those vapors. Can be
volatized.
Right? It can actually leave theplant material and and turn into

(12:22):
a gas, go from a liquid to agas, or go from a a solid to a
gas and and move that way, or itcan be in the water. Right? It
can it can migrate through thesoil or through our waterways on
the backs of h two o. So

Ryan (12:36):
Yeah. And those first two types that you were describing
there are first particle drift,where it's the physical droplets
versus vapour drift, which is aninvisible gas, like you said,
that kind of just evaporates offthe plant for I'm sure that's
not the scientific term for howit happens, turns to a gas,
floats around, and contactsanother plant and causes damage,

(12:57):
so as a vapour.

Chris (12:58):
So, Ryan, I reading through the study, I recognize
several of these names in the inthis report. So who did the
research here? What organizationare or organizations are we we
talking about? And what what Iknow we were all having these
observations of, you know, thatquestion I asked at beginning of

(13:19):
the show, what's wrong with myoak? But they're kind of looking
at these ecosystems.
What what was their objective?

Ryan (13:24):
Well, so my take on this study is that it was a report to
the Illinois Department ofNatural Resources, and really
the basis in my mind of thisstudy is a report to the IDNR on
the status of their naturepreserves. So if, if you're not
aware of this, there's a, anature preserve system
established in Illinois where,parcels of land can be

(13:45):
designated a nature preserve.And they have to meet certain
criteria for heuristic quality,other, I don't know all the
criteria that goes into this. Ihelp folks manage those nature
preserves after they weredesignated at USDA. So I'm aware
of this.
So it's basically an area of alot of biological integrity, a
high value site that we'vedesignated a nature preserve.

(14:08):
And we were seeing a lot of, youknow, chemical trespass or
pesticide damage in these naturepreserves across the state. And
so out of concern, I, I, theIllinois Natural History Survey
are the folks that actuallyimplemented this study and did
it. And you can see kind of alist of the folks. That's
probably who you're recognising,Chris, is different biologists

(14:29):
at INHS that helped do the fielddata collection.
And there really was, I thinkthey did a good job of having a
small group of folks kind of dothis huge study. Because I mean,
looked at sites across thestate. So let's see, they had
185 different sites across thestate they looked at. And so

(14:50):
about 83 of those sites were inthe Illinois Nature Preserve
Commission system. But about 102of those were randomly sampled
from the CTAP sites that thestate set up.
So, gosh, CTAP is an acronym forkind of long term monitoring a
different plant population. Sothey were established maybe in

(15:12):
the nineties, and they've beenlooked at time and time again to
look at trends and changes inplant population and other
things. Those are on some publicsites. Those are on some nature
preserves, but they're they'rekind of randomly scattered
around the state and meant to bethis representative sample,
those CTAP sites are. So theytook, you know, a randomly
sampled group of those CTAPsites and coupled them with,

(15:37):
nature preserve sites, andthat's where we gathered this
data.
So another interesting thing tounderstand about the Illinois
nature preserve system is thatit's not all just public land,
it's also private land. So atUSDA, I only help private
landowners manage theirproperty. And so any of those
sites that I worked on was anature preserve on private

(15:58):
property. So, anyway, so that'swhere this, report came from.
It's a report to IDNR whomanages that nature preserve
system and it's on, you know,how is this happening across the
state and not just on naturepreserves, but on other sites
too.
So they really try to take apretty holistic, pretty rigorous
look at this problem around thestate.

Chris (16:19):
And reading through it, noticed, you know, they made
sure to specify like, hey, theseare as random as we can get. We
are not targeting any sites thatwe have known know that that we
have chemical trespass on. Like,we're trying we're trying to be
as random as we can. Having thatlong term data is also so

(16:40):
important, I think. It's sohard.
You know, we're all tree peoplehere. Well, you two are
definitely tree people. Ipretend to be a tree person.
Tree research is so hard becauseit takes so long. And you got to
get published, and then yougotta write a grant for the next
research project.
So it's this is, like, reallycritical data, long term data to
have stuff like this. So Ryan,what were they sampling for in

(17:06):
these sites? You know, whatexactly was being collected?
Were they just looking atspecific species of trees? You
know, were they going down tothe forest floor?
What was being collected?

Ryan (17:18):
Sure. Well, they did a variety of different types,
collected a variety of differenttypes of data from just simply
visual assessment of the damageand assigning a level of damage
that they, from, you know, nodamage to lots of damage. But
they also sampled leaf tissueand they also took some soil
samples. And those those sampleswere done pretty randomly, you

(17:40):
know, that was the intent withthe way they collected it. So
there wasn't necessarily onespecies they keyed on or, you
know, one particular type ofplant, it was from all different
types of plants.
And they did release kind ofsome lists of the most damaged
species. So we know from that, Iknow you've mentioned Oaks quite
a bit. Oaks were just one of thespecies hardest hit. And I mean,

(18:03):
that's a group of species, youknow, Quercus is kind of the
genus they all fall in. So thoseQuercus species took the hardest
hit of any in the study, butlet's see, actually published or
gave us kind of a list of whatsome of the other, what I'm
looking at is a list of thespecies with the greatest injury
where, you know, this is down tospecies.

(18:23):
So there's quite a few oaks upthere at the top. So just kind
of running down the top 10, itwas shingle oak, blackjack oak,
redbud, post oak, black oak, boxelder, pin oak, bur oak, swamp
white oak. So you see there'skind of a theme here. Hackberry
comes in, persimmon and shagbarkhickory. I went a little beyond

(18:43):
the top 10, but those are someof the ones that come into this,
you know, the most damagedspecies.
And you know, so where the, wesaw like the most damage on oak
species, they're also notingthat redbud and boxelder were
both very good indicatorspecies, meaning they would be
some of the first species toshow signs. And I can say I've
definitely observed that on bothof those. They're pretty quick

(19:07):
to show signs of inner damage.They're pretty sensitive.

Emily (19:11):
So Ryan, the species that you just listed off, I wanna get
to the results, but I wanna,like, hang out on those species
for a few minutes because thoseare like, when you read that
list, in my mind, I go to, like,keystone species. Like, these
are native. They're prevalent.You know, the sites were
selected. They made an effort tochoose the site in every county.

(19:32):
I think they might have missedone or two, but they made a
strong effort to to sample, youknow, with a large geographic
distribution throughout thestate. So not just one area.
They weren't like, Chris, yousaid, like, they weren't looking
at the prevalence of reports ofsuspected damage. It was it was
across the state, and thosespecies are spread across the
state. And these are speciesthat show up in a lot of

(19:56):
different landscapes, includingour community landscapes.
Like, did that

Ryan (20:02):
Mhmm.

Emily (20:03):
That just stood out to me, and it it helped take this
study, which does look at wildspaces, natural spaces that not
a lot of us are are privilegedenough to manage, we enjoy, and
it brought it into, like, mybackyard. I have a number of
those species in my ownbackyard. I'm sure listeners and
and viewers do too. Like, anythoughts or comments just before

(20:24):
we move on? I I I don't know.
It it was it was kinda heartwrenching to me when I heard
that those species were some ofthe most susceptible or, you
know

Ryan (20:34):
Yeah. A lot of common urban trees on that list. Right?
A lot of things we see aroundour communities. I mean, not to,
not to jump back off of that,but I mean, definitely those are
sensitive species within everyurban forest.
Let's face it in Illinois, a lotof our urban forests are close
to areas of pesticideapplication. But I mean, going
back to our kind of land usehistory and the significance in

(20:58):
Illinois from a kind of a forestmanagement standpoint, and I
guess, this study also looked atgrasslands and wetlands and
other types of habitat types. Sothey were trying to be unbiased
in their sampling, but I thinkwe get most concerned with this
long term perennial vegetation,you know, trees and shrubs and
forest ecosystems and howthey're maybe being impacted by

(21:19):
this. And so Illinois forestsare experiencing kind of a
turnover right now. And by rightnow, I mean in current decades,
you know, nothing happens fastin a forest, but what we're
seeing is a shift towards moreshade tolerant species.
And what I mean by that isbasically sugar maple and beech
are the big shade tolerantspecies, meaning they can grow

(21:41):
in 100% shade in the understory,no problem. Where oaks need
about 40% to 60% sunlight inthat understory to be
competitive and to grow into thenext forest. There's lots of
pressure on that understoryright now from those shade
tolerant native species I justmentioned like, maple and beech,
but also from invasive species.You know, we've seen the

(22:03):
widespread bush honeysuckle.It's probably the biggest threat
to forest plant diversity in thestate and it's a 100% shade
tolerant.
It can grow in 100 shade. And sowhy does why what's changed in
our forest long term? Well,we've removed fire from the
landscape. So historically,either naturally caused fire or

(22:23):
mostly human, you know, causedfire by Native Americans and
others on the landscape in thepast drove this kind of fire
dependent ecosystem in Illinoisin our forests. Also, oaks gain
a bit of a competitive advantagein dry, rocky hilltops and drier
sites, more harsh sites.
So when you look at Illinois, wedon't have a ton of dry, rocky,

(22:44):
harsh sites. We've got kind of amosaic of it all. So that's
where oaks have a hard timecompeting without something like
fire, some type of disturbancein that forest ecosystem that
keeps some sunlight coming inand breaks up that canopy.
Smokey the bear, you know, isone of those famous conservation
cartoon characters. You know,I've I've heard quotes where he

(23:06):
that Smokey's more well knownthan Mickey Mouse worldwide and
other things like that, led usto stop, like really eliminate
fire.
And so, you know, bringing up tonowadays, we understand fire
fire's a management tool, it's anecessary part of these
ecosystems, but for many, manyyears, we've excluded it. We've
also subdivided the landscapeinto smaller and smaller tracks.

(23:27):
So we don't have like a largescale landscape level fire like
you would have seen in the 1500sacross this continent that can
help, you know, promote oaks. Sowe have to manage for oaks if we
want them in our ecosystems. Andso to see them as the most
impacted species, that's superscary.

(23:48):
And, you know, that's and that'sa big focus of forest management
right now is keeping oaks in theforest ecosystem in Illinois.
And why do we care about that?Well, two reasons. One is
economical. They're probably thehighest value timbered species
we can manage for in a woodland.
But secondly is an ecologicalreason, and that's the simple

(24:08):
fact that an oak dominatedecosystem is the most diverse we
can manage for. So it supportsthe most insects, the most
plants, the most animals, themost of everything that we can
manage for. So if we lose oakecosystems in Illinois, we lose
all that diversity that goeswith them. And that's that's why
we care about this, and that'swhy it is a big thing to hear
that oaks are the most impactedspecies in this report.

Chris (24:31):
Ryan, did you get a sense of where they were collecting
these samples? I'm I'm justcurious, like, were they at the
interface of agriculture andnatural areas? So all of us that
are more interior from some ofthis chemical use are were okay?
And there's no impact?

Ryan (24:50):
Well, no. I I think it's pretty they tried to break it up
where they were sampling. Itwasn't right at the edge of
things because one of thestatistics they reported is that
proximity to soybeans predictedlevel of herbicide damage. So
that tells me that theirdataset, there's some points
that are further and closer to asoybean field. But that was an

(25:12):
interesting point, know, sothat, you know, proximity to
soybeans predicted level ofherbicide damage.

Chris (25:19):
And then I guess we need to dive into some of these
things that they found. So theythey had two kind of major
sample collection periods. Therewas early season and sort of mid
late season. So let's startearly season. What was found,
early on?

Ryan (25:39):
Sure. Like, with those early season results, what they
were seeing was a lot more,herbicides. That, that, that's
the big pick. That's the mainstory here. So early season,
we're seeing a lot ofherbicides.
Later in the year, we're seeingmore fungicides, a lot more
fungicides. And then they alsonoted an insecticide was part of
that later season application.And that goes right along with

(26:01):
agricultural production systemsand what's being applied. So
that kind of makes sense to seethat trend. But, those, the
early season chemicals they mostreported were Atrazine and
twenty four D.
So those are a couple of big,you know, agriculturally focused
chemicals. Those are also thingswe see in the landscape, in lawn

(26:21):
care and other things. We see alot of twenty four D being
applied for broad leaf control.So, I mean, while these, these
points are all kind of out inrural areas and not really in
the urban space, this reportdoesn't cover, you know, Emily,
you mentioned kind of urbantrees. It really doesn't cover a
lot of the effects of urbantrees or, you know, a lot of

(26:42):
reports I get are from urbanareas and, you know, this
pestis, this chemical trespassor pesticide drift can also
happen from other things thatare going on in urban spaces,
whether it's, you know, reallyintensely managed landscapes or
just a lot of this intense turfgrass management we see in
places.
That's one of the culprits. Or,I mean, I've even seen instances

(27:04):
of pesticide drift from invasivespecies control that other
people are doing in and aroundparks and urban areas that is
going off target. So, you know,while the finger gets kind of
pointed at agriculture in thisreport, I think we have to note
there's lots other ways thatthis chemical trespass is
happening. This report is kindof focused on, you know, these

(27:26):
type settings that aren'tnecessarily right in the middle
of a city or town.

Emily (27:30):
One of the findings that I found startling was that was
so not just the discovery of thepesticides and the fungicides,
but the the distribution of thefindings. So what what it was
correct me if I like, 74%,right, found of the samples

(27:51):
found to have pesticides, like,throughout the state. Like, what
was it? 97% of the sites, Ithink. It's what I wrote down.

Ryan (28:00):
Yeah.

Emily (28:01):
That's a lot of sites. Go ahead.

Ryan (28:04):
That's a lot. It was 74% had at least one pesticide
measured of all their samples,and 97% of their sites had a
positive sample. So that's, youknow, high statistical
significance there. You know,and some of the other, you know,
that that's based off ofchemical analysis of leaf tissue
and soil samples. So that wasexact, you know, that is lab

(28:27):
data where they also measuredvisual signs.
They had, and this is where itkind of, the fact that they've
limited this study to a limitednumber of people that actually
did it comes into play wherethey have, you know, visual
assessments and levels. And I'vedone this kind of fieldwork in
the past for other things,stream rating systems and other
things where you have to alldecide what a number five is,

(28:50):
you know, and be consistentacross sites. So so that was
kind of some of the point ofthis visual assessment is having
a kind of standardized way we'resaying, hey, across the whole
site where, you know, you'veyou've looked at the micro scale
of a leaf tissue sample withwhat, you know, what you're
citing, where then the visualassessment is a little bit
bigger and a bigger assessmentof the site as they kind of

(29:12):
walked through it and assessedplants and took samples. And so
with that, you know, they'resaying 99% of their sites had
some kind of visual damageassociated with it where they
could see signs of these, youknow, telltale, you know, the
signs of herbicide damage, sosome of the symptoms. And they
even, they laid, they gave itdifferent levels of, of the

(29:35):
damage.
So ninety nine percent had somesigns of visual damage, but
ninety two percent of thosesites had moderate damage, and
fifty four percent of thosesites had severe damage they
were seeing. So over half thesites measured had severe damage
that they could visually assessand just see right when they
walked up. One interesting pointthough that relates all this

(29:58):
together and goes back to thekind of the leaf tissue
sampling, is that leaves withgreater visual damage did not
necessarily have greaterherbicide concentrations in the
lab tests, which is interesting.So I'm not, that'd be something
that would be really cool totalk with these researchers
about what they think is goingon there. To me that means that

(30:21):
we can't rely on visualassessment to know what kind of
herbicide level is in that leaf.
You know, it really does take alab assessment to tell us good
or bad, high or low, you know,what's going on there.

Emily (30:35):
I'm glad you said that. That was surprising and it does
cause me to step back and think,you know, like, visual
assessments are only giving us apicture of what is happening. It
doesn't seem that'scounterintuitive, you know, to
what I we were I would havesuspected or I would have said,
you know, if we were I wasbetting on it, would have said,

(30:57):
Well, a visual assessment wouldgive us a pretty good idea of
what's going on. But I thoughtthat was a really interesting
point.

Ryan (31:06):
And I would guess there's probably some statistics they
could run to test for this, andthey maybe ruled it out. But we
know that, certain species aremore susceptible and show
symptoms better. I'm sure theydid some type of statistical
test to kind of control forthat, but that would be another
thing this leads me to wonderabout, you know, is it, are we
seeing those, you know, justmore susceptible species really

(31:28):
show extreme effects reallyquick for small concentrations?
And I don't know that thatquestion was teased out in this
report or that they mentionedit, but, it's kind of something
else that factors into this,this individual species
susceptibility.

Chris (31:43):
Yeah. There's so many variables when you're doing a
study statewide. You have tojust be like, I can't look at
all of it. I have to keep myfocus narrow. That's so hard as
as researchers to do because youwanna look at all of it, but it
it it muddles too much the thedata and everything.
So you have to stay focused.Yes.

Emily (32:01):
Well, and and do long studies. You know, like, the
study. This is one this is asnapshot. This is really
interesting information, but itis from this year. So with this
year's weather patterns, thesingular year's crop rotation
patterns.
You know, we traditionally docorn and soybean rotation. Ryan,

(32:23):
you'd mentioned some of theprevalence with and the the
association with having soybeansnearby versus corn. Well, like,
does that flip? Does thatchange? I there's so much more
to learn from this.

Ryan (32:35):
Yeah. Well, and this, you know, this was just a snap like,
the data were actually collectedin 2023. The report was issued
in 2024, so last year. But it isa snapshot. And actually, Chris,
I think you found a really goodkind of recording of the
researchers discussing this.
So I'm sure we'll get that inthe show notes. Yep. But they do
talk about on that this exactkind of thing where year to

(32:59):
year, we would see differencesin this data. And one of the
cool things they showed in that,they talked about or discussed a
little bit in that recordingwas, maps that show kind of the
where the heavy damage was fordifferent things or where
they're, you know, kind of adistribution map across the
state of where they found thisthing. And that was kind of the
context in which they discussedthat was, you know, in a

(33:21):
different year, we would expectto maybe see a different map of
this density of damage orpesticide level.
So things would definitelychange year to year. This is
just a snapshot.

Chris (33:31):
Yeah. You know what's interesting in that video
recording that they discuss alsotheir they're kind of surprised,
but but also the the twochemicals that I see most often
maligned on social media,dicamba and neonicotinoids, they
said, we we really didn't findthat much. They were kind of
expecting to find more. Theyreally didn't.

Ryan (33:54):
Yeah. And, I mean, that's I mean, a couple years ago,
gosh, Dicamba was just in thenews constantly. You guys both
probably remember this. Andbecause it does get some of that
volatility in vapor drift where,again, that's not you know, your
the sprayer drives by and somedrift wafts over. That is, you
know, a vapor, an invisiblevapor, a gas kind of drifting

(34:16):
around.
And Chris, you noted, like, someof that damage was on other
adjacent crop fields and thingsthe year that all this was just
in the news. So I was surprisedto see, not as much dicamba, but
more 24 was really the biggrowth regulating hormones, you
know, that we saw. And that's,what really is causing a lot of

(34:37):
these ill effects on trees andshrubs and things, and
deformities are those growthregulating hormones. So that was
the big one they found and notnecessarily dicamba.

Emily (34:46):
Let me step back a little bit. You say about like leaf
deformity. Just for theaudience, could you just give a
couple of examples of like whatyou mean when you say that? And
so if folks aren't familiar,maybe haven't hopefully haven't
seen some leaf abnormality.

Ryan (35:02):
Yeah. We can kind of characterize those signs of
damage from a pesticide that arepretty commonly what we would
see are kind of twisted,deformed leaves, that growth
pattern's kind of weird anddeformed, cupping of leaves. So
that's, you know, kind of theleaf cups, curves up. In a red

(35:24):
bud, you know, it's kind ofcupped this way where I think
I've seen, it's usually kind ofcupped downward on most species
that you see. It's really commonthat that new growth that comes
out, like those little, as budsstart, leaves start to emerge,
they don't have a thick cuticleand as much development as other
things, and they're a littlemore susceptible.
Get exposed a little harder.Seeing deformed new growth, you

(35:50):
know, seeing, sign, just reallykind of like on a lot of the
oaks, they become like reallyskinny, long elongated leaves
with the lobes, you know, thedistribution of the lobes is
weird. It's, there's times whereon a white oak, couldn't even
tell you that from a leaf it wasa white oak. I'm looking at the
trunk, you know, and there'ssome telltale signs in the bark

(36:11):
that would tell you it's a whiteoak, or acorns around. But, I
mean, that's extreme cases whereit's not recognizable to
species, but, I'm trying tothink of some of the other
things that I mean, those arethe big ones, you know, and
that's a low level exposureusually that's kind of causing
that cupping and other thingswhere, you know, with a lot of

(36:34):
drift exposure, and this isprobably, I would guess from
particle drift is where I'vekind of seen this happen.
I mean, it's killing leaves orthere's dead spots on leaves,
you know, and causing damagethat way. But in the most, for
the most part, a lot of thisdamage, we're just seeing kind
of weird shaped leaves, deformedleaves, discoloration can also

(36:54):
go along with that. They can bea bit discolored. But you know,
as I describe all these things,I mean, what else does that look
like? There's maybe the cuppingis the one thing I don't see a
lot of other times, but a lot ofother plant stresses cause
discolored leaves, cause leavesthat are dying, you know, cut.
So that's where, gosh, asextension professionals and as

(37:16):
for a lot of folks, it's justreally hard to ever peg
pesticide damage as the causefor these symptoms you see. So
that's, and I think that's whythis study was really
enlightening to me. It's lookingat it across the state and it's
telling me like, gosh, a lot ofthese things I think I'm seeing
could be or most likely could beherbicide damage when it's in

(37:37):
close proximity to areas that weknow pesticides are being
applied. Be it an ag field, beit a golf course, be it another
area that's managed for turf,you know, heavy turf management.
So, I still think we need to bea little careful in not saying
that just anything with weirdlooking leaves is pesticide
damage.
I don't think that's whereanybody that produced this
report was intending to sendfolks. And I try to be really

(38:00):
careful when talking with folksabout this, but, just the number
of reports I'm getting in ouroffice and people I'm talking
to. And I mean, this time ofyear on a weekly, daily basis,
I'm getting reports. I mean, lotof this stuff is most likely
pesticide damage. I don't knowthe other causes.
So, you know, one of the thingsyou do when you're talking with

(38:22):
someone like this is you startto kind of narrow down and
eliminate what are some of thelookalikes? What are some of the
things I can rule out? And youknow, I think you all, we should
talk about that a little bit.What are some of the big
lookalikes to herbicide damage?Like what can you both kind of
think of?
I kind of had jotted down alittle bit of a list trying to

(38:43):
scroll down to, but somelookalike things.

Chris (38:48):
I definitely know that freeze damage, that late season
freeze. As leaves emerge fromtheir bud, they're very
susceptible to injury of allkinds, whether it's a drifting
herbicide or some other, youknow, temperature stress or
insect stress or disease stress.That's a it's it's that that

(39:11):
moment in that leaf's life thatit is most susceptible to some
type of injury.

Emily (39:17):
Yeah. And the timing too is sometimes especially with
those early season symptoms, youknow, that that first assessment
that they did, like, that can beit can be confusing. You know,
if we have a later later frostor a later cold spell, can
really kinda throw us throw, youknow, the public.

Ryan (39:37):
Yeah. I mean and and, you know, even just something as
simple as drought stress, basicenvironmental stress can produce
signs like this. You know,things like, I mean, as simple
as soil come back. So there'sthere's a lot of environmental
stresses we can say can causethis. And, you know, compared to
a disease where, you know, onething we can say with a lot of

(39:59):
disease and usually a lot ofinsects is that it's pretty
species specific.
We're going to see this one typeof tree damaged by this one
disease, but that's another partof this pattern. And the puzzle
I'm piecing together is, in alot of these cases, I'm seeing
multiple species damaged at thesame time by the same thing. Now
that can be you know, frost is agood example of an
environmental, you know, freezedamage is something that would

(40:22):
happen the same way. It'sindiscriminate. It's gonna cause
same damage and the same things,but, I mean, let's face it.
In June, we're not having muchfreeze damage. You you know? So
it's it is a complicated puzzleto sort this out without those
lab tests. And that's what'sreally great about this study is
it incorporated lab testing, butfor your average homeowner or

(40:43):
your average person like uslooking at damage in the
landscape, you know, those labtests can sometimes be as much
as a couple $100 a sample. I'veseen them less than 100, but
I've seen them over a couple$100.
And that's pretty expensive justto say like, you know, yes, I
have herbicide damage. It'scheap. I piece it together, you

(41:05):
know, and we can eliminate otherthings.

Emily (41:08):
Yeah. And if you were to do that, like, then what do you
do? Like, if your trees areimpacted, like, the damage is
done. Like, what because we getthese calls. You know, we we
advise people, you know, with alot of this information, but
then they wanna know what do wedo.
They get concerned about the,you know, the welfare of their

(41:29):
tree.

Ryan (41:30):
Yeah. And that's what is it's really tough. Because, I
mean, it's not like that you cansay, Oh, here's the antidote. Go
apply this to your tree and itreverses all You're right.
Damage has happened.
And going forward, I mean, thereis not a lot we can do other
than sit and watch and assess,other than just eliminating

(41:50):
other environmental stresses. Sodon't let the things we talked
about, soil compaction, droughtstress, extreme wind exposure,
if you can help limit that,don't let those things add
additional stress to your treeor shrub. And also, I mean, not
watch for disease and insects.This is a weakened plant and
those are the kind of placeswhere a lot of diseases or

(42:13):
insects take hold. So gosh, fora lot of people, it's a wait and
see thing.
It's some of the basics of justyour basic tree care of, when
it's really hot water this plantsome, or, you know, like I'm
sure both of you guys recommendthis all the time, add some
mulch over the root system topreserve moisture to

Chris (42:32):
help

Emily (42:32):
us A lot of mulch, a big mulch ring. We don't see that
much.

Ryan (42:37):
Yeah, and so that you have this person though that's
contacted you and has a severelydamaged tree, and it's like,
well, I I'm hope it's gonna beokay. I hope it's just foliar
damage, your plant sustained.But could you put a big giant
mulch ring around it? And andI've talked to people where it's
like, that's a dilemma becauseit's like Yeah. My tree looks so
bad.
I don't know if it's gonna live,which in most cases, I'm seeing

(43:00):
these plants come turn aroundthe next year. And so do I
invest all the time and money ofputting out a giant mulch ring
for something that could not bealive? And, you know, my
argument to that is, you know,hey, you already wanted a tree
there. You already planted one.Let's say this one dies.
You've got the mulch ring forthe next one. You know, it's
established. Yeah.

Emily (43:23):
Well, we talk about that decline spiral. Like you had
mentioned, you know, kind oflike mitigating what you can in
terms of stress. And so if ithas, you know, some stress from
what we think could be apesticide drift, then maybe
don't prune as severely or atall, you know, the following
year, water, like mulch, likeyou said, some of these things.
But that decline spiral issomething if folks are more

(43:45):
interested in, we've got someresources, or just call up one
of us to talk about it. Butbasically, it is the compounding
effect of stressors, and so keepthat in mind.

Ryan (43:57):
Yeah. I mean, just really baby that tree if it's been
damaged. Don't park your truckunder it. You know, that's soil
compaction. I mean, even just,you know, soil compaction is so
hard for people to wrap theirmind around.
It's not a bulldozer drivingacross the surface or a It's
even human foot traffic. If it'san area of high traffic, if
you're mowing a lot under it,all those things are soil

(44:19):
compaction compared to, youknow, the forest floor in an
undisturbed forest. What trafficdoes it have? You know, I mean,
maybe a deer hoof from time totime or, know, but it's not, but
there's nothing like what wehumans do to that soil
environment. So when you havethe stress tree, stay off that
root system as much as possible.
I mean, again, there's justlike, there's not a ton of

(44:43):
things we can tell folks to do,but that watching and monitoring
is an important part of this.And I've had people be alarmed
and call me back when theirplant had some new growth in
later in the year after some ofthis damage. And, you know,
that's a happy story. That thatis like, hey, Your plant had
enough energy reserve to mount aresponse. It's responding, and

(45:06):
it's it's putting out newleaves.
So, that's good. That's what wewanna see. What scares me is
when we have zero plantresponse, and it just, if
anything, its vigor goesdownward, you know, for the rest
of the year. That's, that's asign of it going into decline,
which to define that, you know,that's just that slow spiral

(45:27):
towards death that we see somany trees. I mean, really
that's how most trees die andit's not from one thing, it's
from a combination of thingsthat just slowly kind of let it
fade away.
So monitoring your tree is ahuge recommendation. And again,
like that, that healthy newgrowth coming out, that's great.

(45:49):
I mean, you know, that'sactually going back to some of
the indicators of herbicidedamage. Healthy new growth and
damaged old growth is a sign of,you know, damage from a
chemical. Because when that, youknow, when that older growth
came out, it was damaged, thenew growth wasn't there, new
growth comes out, it'sundamaged.

(46:10):
And, and you can see that on notonly trees and shrubs, but other
herbaceous plants will show thatsame kind of symptom too where
it's another part of the stem isless damaged that's younger. So

Emily (46:22):
One plug though, and I know you know this, Ryan, like
this is just I I wanna drivethis point home. You talk about
babying trees when they haveexperienced stress. Like, if
they're putting out new growth,still baby those trees. They
they are that's a really goodsign, but they're using stored
energy reserves to put thatsecond flush of growth out. And

(46:43):
so continue to water through thefall, into the winter, you know,
like make sure they go intowinter hydrated.
All of the things we all talkabout, like, ad nauseam. But I'm
gonna do it again. So just areminder to people.

Ryan (46:56):
No. That's a good reminder. And I mean, the I've
seen some places recommendtrying to prune the plant
heavily to not have thatherbicide translocate further.
And I don't think I agree withthat recommendation. And some of
it has to do with managing thatenergy flow in the plant, you
know, where all those pruningwounds that you open up heavily

(47:17):
pruning this already stressedplant require a lot of energy to
grow over as opposed to, youknow, a leaf that you could
leave on there that's kind ofdeformed, that's going to at
least photosynthesize and returnenergy for the year.
And, you know, when youunderstand also or when you
think about also, you know, whatare these signs telling us? So

(47:38):
we've got kind of deformedleaves on this plant, but for
that herbicide to really killthe plant, it really needs to
translocate into the tissues,you know, down to the roots, you
know, and start to really killthings. For a lot of this
exposure, that's not what we'regetting though. And it's not and
you know, I I'm speaking fromexperience as someone that

(47:59):
sprayed herbicides on plants totry and kill them and you know,
have seen it not work from timeto time. And, and you can tell,
you know, that plant reallydidn't get a full dose of this
chemical in the way it waslabeled and meant to be applied
to a woody plant.
And so I, I think that's alittle bit of consolation for
some people when I'm discussingthis with them. It's like, hey,

(48:19):
you know, if this herbicide wasapplied directly to your plant
as labeled to kill a woodyplant, it would be translocating
to the roots and really killingthis plant. Where what we're
seeing, you know, with cuppedleaves and deformity is, like,
not that full dose happeninghere. So, you know, the
consolation there is, like, itgot a lower dose than the lethal

(48:42):
dose, and let's hope it can dealwith that and grow out of it and
we can baby it through. Sosomething else to think about.

Chris (48:49):
What a very common question I get when on this
topic with a a client or ahomeowner, landowner, what have
you is, can I stop this? Isthere a way to prevent chemical
trespass from occurring? Isthere a way for that I can
protect my trees or garden,whatnot, from being exposed?

Ryan (49:10):
Yeah. It's a common question I get too, and I'm I'm
in the central part of the stateand you see lots of yards, you
know, out in the ruralcountryside that are just right,
you know, that, that plot ofland where their yard is, is
just right in the middle of acornfield, you know. And so
they're just, I mean, in reallyclose proximity where, you know,

(49:30):
one of the things that we'vekind of talked about with this
is a vegetative buffer of somekind to kind of limit that
damage coming into your yard andthe, more valuable plants. And
really, you know, the way we'vetalked about these vegetative
type buffers is in the form of awindbreak in in the past. And so
I think that is a way that youcan start to kind of put a

(49:51):
barrier between your morevaluable plants and where, you
know, damage is coming in from.
But, you know, that takes upspace. So that's a problem. If
you don't have a very big yard,if you don't own the crop field
adjacent to it, you can't reallyplant out into it to create a
bigger buffer. But, sowindbreaks can help with, you

(50:13):
know, we've talked about acouple of different forms of
drift, particle drift where it'sdirect drops and things, and
then vapor drift. Windbreaksgoing to do a little bit more
for particle drift, you know,that actual physical spray
wafting in there than it is forvapor drift.
But, I think one of the biggestmisconceptions, with designing

(50:33):
and putting in a windbreak forthis purpose, for drift
reduction, is the density ofthat planting where if you're
just all out blocking the wind,you want on the north side of
your property from those coldwinter winds or whatever, a
windbreak, pretty a pretty densewindbreak is probably the best
idea. It's going to stop as muchwind as possible. Where in this
case, we're trying to interceptparticle drift. You actually

(50:56):
want a little bit of space forair to get in. You want to slow
down the wind speed as it entersthe buffer, but then have some
space that it can get through.
So you don't want as dense of abuffer planting so there can be
some time for those particles todrop out and be absorbed by the
plant in your plants in yourbuffer. So you have to realize
your your windbreak buffersystem is meant to be the plants

(51:17):
that take up that that drift.So, where if if you do design a
buffer that is just that superdense blockage, what it can do
is take that particle drift andjust force it up and over, and
then it's gonna come down. Andthere's really good metrics for
the kind of downwind side ofthat buffer and how tall the

(51:39):
plants need to be for how muchprotection. But as soon as you
get outside of that kindwhatever you wanna call it, a
wind shadow of the thewindbreak, then those particles
are dropping back out, and it'snot as effective as if it was a
little less dense and allowingair to come through.

Chris (51:53):
Yeah. You see that with, like, snowfall patterns on some
windbreaks Mhmm. You know, wherethe snow actually gets deposited
on the opposite side. Sometimesyou have these just drifts of
snow on the, you know, on theopposite side of a windbreak.
It's like, oh, so it just pushedit up and then pushed it back
down.

Ryan (52:10):
Mhmm. Yeah. And that's the kind of thing you get where, you
know, maybe if you're, if you'replanning it specifically for,
you know, drift reductions,herbicide drift reduction, you
know, think about a little lessdense of a planting. You know, a
lot of the better plants toplant there are things with a
lot of surface area. So thinneedled plants.

(52:30):
I mean, I'm thinking of likewhite pine or some of our
conifers, plants with lots ofnumerous small branches and lots
of surface there. So really themost awesome windbreaks you can
put in are multiple species andmultiple rows where, you know, I
picture it as large shade treeslike your oaks, smaller things
like maybe some conifers andshrubs. You know, there's any

(52:53):
combination of those even goingdown to grasses where you would
kind of step down, to a lowerheight on the windward side. You
know, some other characteristicsthat are desirable are kind of
large leaves that are covered inhairs. So I think we can all
think of some plants like that.
That's, that hairy leaf surfaceis going to take up more, more

(53:13):
things. Roughs, just roughfoliage, you know, rough
surfaces on leaves. So as you'relooking at your plant selection,
those are kind of some of thethings to think about. And I
don't know, I've also got thequestion about, how far is
appropriate setback off the edgeof the field? How far should I

(53:36):
plant?
And I mean, I don't have a greatanswer for that either. You can,
you can see absolutemeasurements that places
recommend, whether it's 25 feetor 50 feet. There's other
metrics you can look at where,you know, how high is the spray
boom height versus how tall arethe plants, you know, and how
far away do you need to be? Youknow, if you have a buffer

(53:57):
there, how tall should theplants be and then how far away
should you be from that? Sothere there's some I don't think
there's really a perfect cookiecutter recipe for this as to how
far your setback should be.
And, you know, usually my answeris as far away as you can get
from the field edge would thevery center of your property
would be the best. But this isall with respect to particle

(54:17):
drift, the physical particlescoming in. When we start to look
at vapor drift, this invisiblegas, I mean, you know, I'm
telling you to plant a littlemore diffuse of a buffer, that's
not going to help as much withvapor drift. It's obviously
going to slow wind speed downand wind does carry those
vapours into your property, butI don't know that it's going to

(54:39):
it's not the same concept ofyour buffer kind of taking up
that material. I would say thatany of these buffers you can
plant will help some with vapordrift.
I mean, there's additional plantmaterial in front of your
desirable plants that are takingit in. One thing I've never
tested or used in the field, butI've heard folks talk about and

(55:00):
I've heard some organic growerstalk about doing this with some
luck, is actually putting up aphysical fence that is something
pretty impermeable like whatthey described to me as pretty
much essentially like landscapecloth that's hung up on a
permanent fence that is thenreally a pretty strong barrier
that with vapour drift, I guess,kind of pushing it up and over

(55:23):
their and so I don't know, thattakes a lot of time to construct
and it's a permanent structurein it. But, I mean, that's so so
it's really difficult to handlethis with any one practice
because it there's two ways it'skinda getting in the for for the
most part. And which one ofthese do you wanna pick to
handle it? You know, I don'tknow what's gonna be your best

(55:44):
option.

Emily (55:45):
Well, are good suggestions, at least. Like, it
is each landscape is so nuanced.At least that gives folks a
place to start. Now I've got,like, images of of a landscape
fabric fence in my landscape,and I'm sure my husband will
appreciate that. So

Ryan (56:04):
Well, it's not pretty. Yeah. I don't think that's a
very nice looking attribute ofthe landscape. But, you know,
just simply if plan a windbreak,I mean, if there's if you're
looking to do something, plan awindbreak, it's it just helps
your property out if you havethe space. It it helps block
some of that incoming wind.
It's it can be all native treesif you focus on that. It can
have some ecological benefit. Itcan just diversify the landscape

(56:28):
around your house. So, I mean,that's probably the basic the
one basic step that you know,it's not without cost. Trees and
shrubs are expensive whereveryou get them.
But it's just the one thingthat's maybe practical for a lot
of folks to do as opposed to Idon't know, how tall of a finch
you would need as a barrier. ButI guess it depends on the height
of your planting and otherthings.

Emily (56:50):
Yeah. Yeah. So we've been talking a lot about herbicide
trespass. The study did have afew comments about fungicide
that we haven't talked about.And I don't I don't think we
need to spend a whole lot oftime on it because this study is
a little bit inconclusive, but Ithought we should mention the

(57:11):
findings.
So, Ryan, you wanna elaborate onwhat they what they found or
didn't find?

Ryan (57:17):
Yeah. Well, like we talked about earlier, later in the
season, it was more Mhmm.Fungicide damage they saw. And I
mean, I guess for me, beingpretty plant focused person, I
was kind of like, well, youknow, hey, fungicide, maybe we'd
have a little less anthracnoseon our trees or may, you know,
maybe there'd be a little less,and I guess that happens early.
The timing for anthracnose wouldbe wrong because it happens

(57:38):
earlier in the spring, but maybeit's limiting a little bit of
foliar damage.
But it was interesting to me inthis study, they talked about
just some of the largerecological effects potentially
of that fungicide, which one ofthe things that rang, rang home
to me was some of their futureplans are to look at mycorrhizae

(57:59):
in the soil. And so for anybodythat doesn't know, doesn't
remember what mycorrhizae are,they're, we believe symbiotic
relationships with roots, which,you know, there's, you know,
there's controversy around that,whether there's maybe, there may
be more competitive and it'sless just wonderful symbiosis
that we thought in the past. Butlong story short is they help

(58:20):
trees take up more moisture andnutrients when they infect a
root. And so if a fungicide isin the tree, does it kill the
mycorrhizae in the soil? I don'tknow the answer to that.
I don't know if we do know theanswer to that. Another just
interesting point was they, theywere going to maybe look at
decomposition rates in the soil.And how does that connect to all

(58:43):
this? Well, you know, fungi area major driver of decomposition
of organic matter in the soilenvironment. And if a fungicide
is impacting them, it mightimpact decomposition rates.
And why do we care about that?Well, that's the nutrient
exchange in the forest is theturnover of those leaves and
decomposition of those leaves.It could be a huge factor on the

(59:03):
ecosystem scale, you know, ifthere's changes there. So pretty
interesting findings.

Emily (59:12):
Yeah. I had those same thoughts too, like how woodland
or prairie like decompositionneeds to happen in prairies.
We're not always burning. We'renot always you know, there's a
lot of biomass have built up inthose landscapes too and
wetlands. Like, it's justanother aspect of the landscape
that we are influencing that westill have more to learn about.

(59:34):
So I'm glad thank you forelaborating on that. I I found
that really interesting where itwas know?

Ryan (59:40):
Yeah. And so I think another little point that came
out this to me that I thoughtwas interesting was that they
noted, so again they didn't juststudy forested ecosystems. They
had points in prairies andwetlands and other places, and
they noted that there was moresevere damage or more damage in
the more open environments theysampled in such as a prairie or
a wetland. And what does thattell me? Well, I mean, I think

(01:00:05):
and also, you know, proximity toag land and other things factor
into this.
But, it makes me wonder if, youknow, planting a windbreak as a
buffer is maybe is maybe alittle better of an idea with
some of this because, it's aless open spot than when once
you add that something breakingup that wind pattern, that wind
flow. I don't know. So I don'tknow how to take that kind of

(01:00:28):
result, but that was interestingtoo to hear that, I guess, those
more open areas are just moreopen to the drift coming in,
but, that was another kind ofsignificant finding.

Emily (01:00:41):
Yeah. With that, I thought also, you know, that the
types of plant material that arein those spaces, woody versus
herbaceous perennials, like themetabolic rates of those plants
is different, and I didn't knowif that had, you know, an effect
on how plants were responding tothese chemicals. So

Ryan (01:01:01):
Yeah. Good point. Good point. That could definitely be
something at play there between,you know, your grass species and
your tree species.

Emily (01:01:08):
Yep. Okay. Did we miss anything? I want I'm gonna ask
you guys to kinda, like,summarize your takeaways. We've
done it a little bit, but we'lljust put a nice bow on it here.
But did we miss anything? Or,Ryan, do you wanna add any,
like, final comments before wedo that?

Ryan (01:01:26):
No. I I think we've covered it pretty well top to
bottom. And to me, just thebiggest takeaway is, I mean, a
lot of, a lot of this damagewe're seeing around the
landscape can be attributed toherbicides. You know, seeing it
this widespread in this study,you know. And this, this was
done in a repeatable scientificmethod, you know?

(01:01:46):
So others could repeat this andlook at this and try to look at
similar statistical significanceand prove true or false, the
findings of this study. So Ifeel like, I feel pretty
confident in the results herebeing comparable around the
state. And, but again, like wetalked about, I think before we
go and say herbicide damage foranything, you need to do an

(01:02:09):
investigation. It's not assimple as just looking at leaf
characteristics. They're youknow, you've got to really look
at that whole environment theplant's in and understand, you
know, what else could be atplay.
But those are my takeaways, atleast. It makes me think I'm not
crazy in in that I'm seeingherbicide damage all around
Central Illinois. I mean, it,you know, could be the cause of

(01:02:29):
a lot of this.

Emily (01:02:31):
Yeah. I had a very similar reaction, which is I
appreciate the scientific methodbeing applied to to something
that we have seen, we have,like, I think just suspected,
you know, like the as people whoare engaged with nature, who are
out observing it from year toyear, different ecosystems, just

(01:02:53):
making observations, It's niceto have a systematic study done.
But it it can be replicated, andI do believe the intention is to
continue to, you know, tocontinue to study these spaces.
They've they marked certaintrees to go back to and watch
the growth rates over time. Ilook forward to seeing, you

(01:03:13):
know, how those trees respond,you know, either recover or, you
know, are affected by repeatexposure.
But it is it is, like,validating. Like you said, like,
we're not crazy for for thinkingwe see this all over. Not in,
like, a I'm not excited about itbeing validated, but knowledge

(01:03:37):
is power. And so then we canonce we have a better
understanding of what is goingon, we can actually make
landscape management decisionsthat hopefully help support the
trees in our lives or theecosystems in our lives.

Ryan (01:03:51):
And I think to me, I mean, again, though, not really
excited about this, but I'm I'mglad to see some some progress
or some real scientificinvestigation. And it sounds
like to me they do continue toplan more more of this
scientific investigation. Likeyou mentioned, there was, you
know, 1,400 trees that weremarked during the study or
plants that they will follow-uplong term and try and monitor as

(01:04:13):
best they can. They were lookingat doing some, lab and
greenhouse experiments kind oflook at how these, you know,
pesticides or herbicidesinteract with plants. And
really, you know, the biggestquestion, to answer is what is
the long term implications ofthis?
Where on the short term, you andI we're all three of us are

(01:04:34):
probably seeing this year toyear. And there's even times
where somebody that called meone summer, I talked to the next
summer, or they could reach outagain, and I I get to see a
little bit of return on whathappened to that plant. But I
think that at least in my ownpersonal life where I'm seeing
this in nature preserves andareas around me, because I I
live right in the middle of therural, you know, Central

(01:04:56):
Illinois landscape, it'srepeated damage every year to
the same plants, you know,because they're kind of in that
position on the landscape wherethey're receiving the wind off a
field or off of this adjacentimpact. And so, to to think that
somebody's starting to look atthat, that's a big, big question
where it's not killing thatmature oak tree, but gosh, it

(01:05:19):
sure isn't helping it out everyyear to have tiny leaves or
distorted leaves. And what doesthat do after ten years, after
twenty years?
I mean, what are we going to seethirty years from now in our
forest stand composition? Is itgonna be changed, or do these
can these trees weather thestorm? I we don't know.

Chris (01:05:36):
Well, I I guess I would add that I I yeah. You see the
storm happening. You see theissues, the damage. You see
issues, the damage. You see theproblems in agriculture where we
have fewer farmers and we havebasically fewer eyes on more
land.
And right now, we have to have alot of human input, whether that

(01:05:57):
is at planting time, whetherthat is applying a pesticide. A
lot of that has to be contractedout, which means everyone is
rushing. You know, we have laborcosts. We're doing aerial
applications. We're trying tocover our bases where maybe
we're not scouting as good as weshould be and finding what's
going on.
And so it sounds bleak andterrible, but my hope is

(01:06:20):
applying maybe some newtechnology for us in the future,
incorporating things likeartificial intelligence, drones,
robotics, things where we canmaybe reduce some of those labor
inputs and have direct targetedpest action in our agricultural
field. So I am hopeful in thefuture as we develop this new

(01:06:41):
technology that we can employ toreduce maybe the blanket amount
of spraying that we do acrossthe Illinois landscape. So
fingers crossed that day iscoming.

Ryan (01:06:51):
Yeah. I think there's a lot of, like, hope in that area.
And, I mean, we were all I thinkall three of us were at the last
Farm Progress show at one day oranother. And so I did. I I
toured some of those exhibits,and there's just some really
cool stuff going on.
And I don't think it wasreleased on the market yet, but
one of the sprayer examples hadlittle cameras that would
identify the weed and spray onlywhen the weed was there. And so,

(01:07:14):
I mean, we are like our man, ourtechnology is really, you know,
catching up with this and tryingto get us more targeted and, you
know, less chemical per acregoing out. And so there's a lot
of things moving in the rightdirection to help correct this.
But, but anyway, so so yeah.Hope for there's hope for the
future, I think, across theboard on this.

(01:07:36):
And hopefully, can get maybesomeday there'll be a bunch of
drones that just fly out andjust spray every weed
individually. That that'd be theideal thing. Right?

Chris (01:07:44):
Yes. Well, that was a lot of great information about the
issues of chemical trespass,what we're seeing in our forest
ecosystems. Again, the studythat we talked about and a
presentation that is linked toYouTube will be down in the show
notes below. Well, the goodgrowing podcast is a production
of University of IllinoisExtension edited this week by

(01:08:04):
me, Chris Enroth. Hey, Ryan, aspecial thanks to you for being
our guest today and diving intothis 94 page report to to kind
of come up we could keeptalking, but we we better cut
ourselves off here.
So thank you so much, Ryan, for,you know, pulling out some of
those really important pieces ofinformation for us.

Ryan (01:08:26):
Yeah, thanks. Great discussion today. It was fun
talking about this with a goodgrowing crew.

Chris (01:08:31):
Well, thank you. And, Emily, thank you very much for
joining me from Milan or as weshould, we go back to Milan,
Illinois. It was a pleasurehaving you here today.

Emily (01:08:43):
Oh, it is my pleasure to be here. Ryan, this was a
fantastic discussion about areally interesting study. So
thank you for bringing it to ourattention. Really, really
appreciate it. Chris, thanks forletting me join you.
And I know Ken is away againnext week. So why don't we do a

(01:09:03):
Garden Bite and then we'll do itagain the following week.

Chris (01:09:07):
That's right. We will do this again next week the
following week. It'll be aGarden Bite as Emily said, and
the following week we'll, well,shoot. It's July 4. We'll figure
something out.
So it it will be a fun, festive,explosive, good growing podcast.
So but not maybe that last part,but it'll be fun. Alright. Well,

(01:09:27):
listeners, thank you for doingwhat you do best and that is
listening or if you're watchingus on YouTube watching. And as
always, keep on growing.

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Ep. 216 Chemical Trespass in Illinois: How Herbicides Are Impacting Native Trees and Ecosystems | #GoodGrowing

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 216 Chemical Trespass in Illinois: How Herbicides Are Impacting Native Trees and Ecosystems | #GoodGrowing