How Herbicide Drift from Farms Is Harming Trees in Midwest - Yale e360

Black oak leaves that have been curled and browned by herbicide in Illinois. Prairie Rivers Network

Researchers are starting to pay closer attention to the widespread damage wrought by agricultural herbicides. Drifting sprays may not kill trees, shrubs, and other nontarget plants outright, but experts believe they are making them vulnerable to insects, fungi, and disease.

By Richard Mertens • April 25, 2025

A must read: https://t.co/fgdKy2kkLp
-Forestry officials are coming to grips with a problem that many were slow to recognize — until they started to see it everywhere. Thank you @PrairieRivers! https://t.co/VTVp29JTZO

— GMO/Toxin Free USA (@GMOFreeUSA) May 1, 2025

 

Herbicides have been damaging nontarget vegetation since the compounds were first applied to row crops in the early 1940s.

Kim Erndt-Pitcher, of the Prairie Rivers Network, photographs herbicide drift in Shawnee National Forest, Illinois. Martin Kemper

How Herbicide Drift from Farms Is Harming Trees in Midwest - Yale e360 

 Herbicides have been damaging nontarget vegetation since the compounds were first applied to row crops in the early 1940s. 

• In the 1950s, the Forest Service linked boxelder blight in the Northern Great Plains to drift from crops sprayed with the widely used herbicide 2,4-D. 

• In the 1960s, the herbicide damaged grapes in central Washington, and 2,4-D drift continues to damage grape vines, fruit trees, and vegetables today. 
•  ALSO ON YALE E360 Imperiled in the wild, many plants may survive only in gardens. Read more.
  
  Herbicides and other agricultural chemicals can travel beyond the fields in many ways. A breeze can blow droplets away from sprayers or crop-dusting airplanes. Dust from fields has been found to contain pesticides. 
• And many pesticides are volatile: In warm weather they turn into a gas and become part of the air. In the 1990s researchers found several herbicides in the rain falling on Isle Royale National Park, in Lake Superior, demonstrating that contaminants could be atmospherically transported “hundreds of kilometers and deposited by precipitation.” 
•  The scale of herbicide damage is just one consequence of our ongoing battle with weeds. Herbicides became popular in the U.S. after World War II. 
• Their use increased as farms grew in size and as farmers adopted conservation practices, like cover cropping and no-till farming, that reduce soil erosion. Instead of disking, plowing, and cultivating to control weeds, they simply sprayed chemicals. The amount of herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides used in the U.S. more than tripled between 1960 and 1981.

@YaleE360 how much are the chemicals in the #GeoEngineering from #Chemtrails affecting and or adding to the damage done to the trees and vegetation? fyi: the Govts have finally admitted they are spraying the skies. @OpChemtrails has info if needed> #GotScience

— Scotty (@StLHandyMan) May 3, 2025