On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 17:34:20 -0800, Sunworshipper
wrote:


Believe it or not back in the late 60s I used to work for a cropduster
flying an AgCat out of a small field in northern wisconsin, we sprayed
mostly potatoes and corn...he'd land on a dirt road out in the field and I
would mix the chemicals by hand!...talk about dumb! up to my elbows in that
crap! he used, among others,malathion. to this day I can smell that stuff.
many times there were spills of the stuff into little creeks and rivers
where we got the water for the mix.
Called a halt to it when I passed out in a truckstop,I stayed there till I
was well enough to travel, then went home, no doctor,no nothing...dumb!
They tell me now (and I believe it) that the chemical used to kill the
potato vines is in reality agent orange.

gp , I've heard stories like that back in the DDT days.

And yet, we're all still around talking about it. For the record,
malathion stinks like hell, but it's not that toxic. It's still used
around populated areas for mosquito control. Sevin was o.k.,
malathion, Stam for grass in rice, 2,4,5 T for broadleaf weeds.
That's probably what you used for potato vines. Agent Orange
contained 2,4,5 T (2,4,5 trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), 2,4 D (2,4
dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), and other stuff. It was basically
unrefined. I think the "other stuff" may have been nastier.

One of the worst for aquatics, finally banned, was toxaphene. It
never broke down, but once the emulsifiers dried up was extremely
insoluble, and therefore inert. Absolute death to fish, crabs, etc
until it dried, though.

Sunworshipper, if I'm ever out that way, I'll buy a few beers, and we
can reminisce.

Pete Keillor

NP I've met 3 of you so far. Had to keep one eye open at Gunner's.
Plus , I kind of got use to cheap beer so you won't have to worry
about the cost. I'm sure its commonly known now that AO was used just
to photograph the forest floor. That's got to be some nasty stuff to
kill a rain forest.

Has anyone invented a machine to pick un-defoliated cotton yet ? It
has always bugged me how its grown then killed just to get the fussy
parts off, sure seem like hardy plants before they get the axe.

Oh, one more thing Pete (you seem to know this stuff) what is the blue
or green liquid stuff , has a name or smells like salt water to kill
cotton? Wish I could have taken a chemistry and Latin class, boy that
would sure get some looks in school. 'He must be sick.'

Beats me, I don't know anything about cotton. We mostly worked with
rice (I do have a degree in chemistry, but it was a long time ago). I
believe I did hear from a fellow I worked with that sodium chorate was
used as well as amine salts. Chlorates are strong oxidizers, and
might make a fire hazard. Amine salts and amines in general can be
nasty.

One of our pilots would work the cotton defoliant season which came
later than the rice harvest. He talked about full section fields in
the Texas panhandle, and flying until he was totally exhausted, like
30 days straight. Man, I was cured of wanting to be a crop duster
early. The hours are a killer.

Pete Keillor