Hi, Dr Cameron I think sometimes and somewhere your generalization may not work. >One thing that many people don't remember is that many of the >chemicals used in the backyard are much more dangerous than the >ones used in forestry. I feel that the Foresters of today have >done very well in developing chemicals that are not as toxic as >the ones used in Agriculture. In Korea generally there is a rice paddy below forest lands in a hill side. Six years ago one of my forestry colleagues sprayed a herbicide(sorry, I do not know the name) in his experiment sites. Several weeks later he got a serious complaint from the owners of the rice paddy catching water from the experimental forest. Rice plant seedlings on the paddy were burnt. Finally, his institute had to compensate for the loss of rice plants in the paddy. I think the herbicide might have been target specific in the forest, but not in the rice paddy. Otherwise, I totally agree with you. > And in many cases the person > spraying the chemical must be certified. Later the colleague briefly told me why it had happened. He sprayed the herbicide during dry season and realized the chemical did not work. So he sprayed again. During the dry period the rice paddy did not show any damage. When the area got rains enough to flow on the surface, however, the seedling damage appeared because the surface flow from his experimental site entered the rice paddy. I think he should have understood how herbicides work. Cheers Matthias Koo New Zealand School of Forestry University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand
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