Glyphosphate

[garymc]

Over the last 6 months or so the local council has significanlty increased the use of Glyphosphate in the neighbourhood.

Was just after some basic info with regards to its toxicity to birds, symptoms, treatment for poisoning etc

[GregH]

We had quite a good discussion about glyphosate last year see the earlier Round-up thread.

[Craig52]

Gary Hi, in western vic the farmers spray thier paddocks with glyphosphate before they sow thier crops.After the weeds have died the Galahs,longbilled corellas go for all the onion weed bulbs Roundup adds say it kills roots and all.I'm leed to believe that roundup has a very short life after it hits the plant and the onion weed bulbs become very sweet tasting before they die and rot.After all that,i still wouldn't trust what your council is doing so you might have to go further a field to get your seed grass but still wash it before feeding it to your birds.
ps ignore my post on the lessers,i understand why Cheers Craig


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[desertbirds]

Is the council using dye so you know whats been sprayed ?

[Craig52]

Very good question DB,i think legally they have to use a dye around here,but to me WA s a different country to us LOL and they do what they like

[Craig52]

Just been informed,the coloured dye is also a wetting agent for the waxy leafed plants. cheers Craig

[garymc]

Firstly - thanks Greg for pointing me in the right direction.

The local council did for a short period use the pink dye - bye they spray so often now that the town was looking pink. Not a good image for a tough mining town. All roadside verges used to be brush cut and mowed but I think it works out cheaper to use spray which is also useful in killing off the calthrop (double gees) which is very prevalent at times (after rain and heat)!

I usually get my grasses from along the local creek bed which I have assumed is never sprayed (I have also been told in the past, that it is never sprayed by the council). I fronted the council workers this morning and asked what they were using and it was indeed glyphosphate. Hence if the worse come to worse and they did spray the creek bed then, whilst not ideal, it shouldn't be all bad news.

Again thanks and Desertbirds and Croc'n'shas those avatars of your look strikingly familar

Cheers

[VR1Ton]

The pink dye is spaymaker dye, & is a nontoxic dye, it has no other properties than allowing sprayers to see what has & hasn't been sprayed. Unless they have changed the composition of it, it does not act as a surfactant, purely an indicating dye, & any waxy leaved species being sprayed still need the addition of a surfactant. To my knowledge (when I was sraying anyway) there is no legal requirement to use the dye, we never used it in town as you would get more complaints about the big pink marks on the roadside than the fact you were spraying. Roundup has a very low toxicity, Oral LD50 of over 4000, & from memory, the dermal LD50 was something like 6000 or more, it has withholding period of 1 day for annual weeds, & 7 days for perennial herbacious weeds. As a comparison of toxicity, snail baits have an oral LD50 of 630, Derris Dust has an Oral LD50 of 25, & a dermal LD50 of 132, & Ratsak has an Oral LD50 of 1.

Round up does de-activate on contact with soil, & plants need to be actively growing for glyphosate to be translocated to the root system, & has to have contact with atleast 60-80% of the plant to effectively kill the plant. I regularly use glyphosate around the yard & outside the aviaries & have never had any problems, the use of a spay with a partical size greater than 150 micron helps to reduce spray drift, & windspeeds below 4 knots.

[Pete Sara]

LIke VR just said the dye is just to mark where you have been, depending on the circumstances. WE use blue dye as the red stuff tends to freak people out abit around here thinking that its poison... I my self had just found what I think was a patch of Johnson grass ,so dug some up to take home and as I have been coming home for the last few days and have noticed that it and all the verge has been dying so bugger, but some of the seed may still be viable.

Besides if they have Gary its not all bad as there should be enough seed in the ground for next year.....pete

[desertbirds]

Again thanks and Desertbirds and Croc'n'shas those avatars of your look strikingly familar

Cheers

Best birds ive kept.

I`d be pushing for the pink stuff, even in a tough mining town. Given the choice, would you pick the green stuff thats bright pink or the stuff you know hadn`t been sprayed ? The dye is expensive and they get a bit lazy on it at work as well, but id rather know whats been sprayed.