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Off-Target Herbicide Deposition Associated with Treating Individual Trees

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Abstract

There are a wide variety of different herbicide treatment methods used to remove single trees. Each method (cut-stump, basal, foliar) has a unique amount of off-target disturbance that should be considered in selecting a treatment for use in management. We quantified the amount of off-target deposition that resulted from four conventional herbicide application methods: 1) basal, 2) cut-stump, 3) high-volume, hydraulic foliar, and 4) low-volume, backpack foliar. Basal and cut-stump herbicide treatments deposited up to 200 and 4000 times more herbicide (a.i. per unit area) at groundline than the low-volume and high-volume foliar treatments, respectively. On a per tree basis, basal and cut-stump treatments deposited nearly six times more total herbicide than high-volume foliar, and 68 times more than low-volume foliar. All of the herbicide deposited off-target landed within 0.6 m of the basal and cut-stump treatments, 3.7 m with the low-volume foliar, and 7.3 m with high-volume foliar methods. Off-target herbicide deposition resulted in affected areas with killed or damaged vegetation ranging in size from 0.36 m2 (cut stump) to 7.08 m2 (high-volume foliar). Deposition amounts and affected areas were greater with larger trees, compared to smaller ones. We observed that 48% of the total amount of herbicide applied per plot was deposited off-target with cut-stump treatment, compared to only 4% to 11% for the other treatments. We suspect this difference is due to applicator error with the cut-stump treatment, likely related to the type of spray device used to apply the treatment.

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Acknowledgments

We have liberally shared our ideas and discoveries with regard to herbicide deposition over the last 5 years and have gained much from various organizations in terms of collegial reactions and monetary support. We acknowledge the following people and organizations for that general support: Dr. L. Abrahamson, State University of New York; Dr. E. Neuhauser, K. Finch, C. Allen, and T. Sullivan, Niagara Mohawk, a National Grid Company; K. McLoughlin, New York Power Authority; D. Mider and A. Peterson, New York State Electric and Gas; and J. Goodrich-Mahoney, Electric Power Research Institute. Specific support for the writing of this paper was provided by the above-named people and organizations, and select herbicide manufacturing companies, acknowledged as follows: M. Fleming, BASF; D. Berk and M. Rice, DuPont; and B. Sherksnas, Dow AgroSciences. Technical support for the work was provided by: A. Barlow, M. Casler, D. Charlebois, C. Chodoba, J. C. Deegan, A. Fritzen, B. Gloss, R. Herrera, J. Magoon, C. Mason, K. Moller, J. Nowak, M. Nowak, R. Nowak, T. Nowak, B. B. Park, N. Ramage, S. Silvestri, A. Tewksbury, M. Todd, and H. Whittier. S. Zedaker and S. deBlois provided useful reviews as this journal’s referees.

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  1. Faculty of Forest and Natural Resources Management, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 215 Marshall Hall 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, New York, 13210, USA

    Christopher A. Nowak & Benjamin D. Ballard

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  1. Christopher A. Nowak
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  2. Benjamin D. Ballard
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Correspondence to Christopher A. Nowak.

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Nowak, C.A., Ballard, B.D. Off-Target Herbicide Deposition Associated with Treating Individual Trees. Environmental Management 36, 237–247 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0080-3

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