Aerial spraying
(Continued from Page Al)
■become the focus of public con
cern, such as the Fayette County
incident.
But rather than, having an
enraged urban protest group
deciding on whether or not her
bicide spraying is safe, Cole said
"rural people and farmers should
have the right to decide where
management of right-of-way
goes.”
Cole urged farm organizations,
like Pennsylvania Farmers’
Association, Grange, and Far
mers’ Union, to bring this problem
before its membership. He as*.ed
farmers to be "articulate” in their
defense of pesticide use. He
warned that using chemicals in
agriculture and elsewhere is an
issue, next to nuclear
as an issue in the public's
hilnds.
The Pennsylvania Department
of Agriculture’s Gerard J.
Florentine, pest control official,
stressed that his job in regulating
the sales, distribution, and use of
pesticides could be boiled down to
the following philosophy making
sure all pesticides are “used in a
manner consistent with Jheir
label.” Interpreting this law,
however,, can be hazy, he ad
mitted, due to the uniqueness of
each situation the type of
terrain, the type of weed being
controlled.
Other representatives of DOW
Chemical, Union Carbide, and
Noxious Vegetation Control, Inc.
reported on the safety of chemical
herbicides used in spraying utility
rights-of-way and the safe manner
in which they are applied, with
little drift.
Walter F. Grobert, area
manager of NOVCO, commented
that in the 18 years he has been
involved in herbicide spraying, he
has never had a controversy like
West Penn Power had last year.
When asked if the herbicide his
company uses in spraying utility
lines would affect agricultural
crops, Grobert said picloram is a
broadleaf weed killer and
therefore would harm potatoes,
tomatoes, alfalfa, tobacco' and
grapes. However, be said aerial
applicators "stay away from these
areas.”
Participating in the in
formational program were
representatives of the State
Grange and PFA. Last week the
State Grange voted to petition PDA
to reactivate its Pesticide Ad
visory Board to develop and en
force standards for aerial spraying
of herbicides for utility rights-of
way, a result of their involvement
with the citizens and utility
representatives in Fayette County.
“Careless aenal application of
herbicides can result in con
tamination of crop and
pasturelands, animal and human
water sources, and marketable
crops and ornamental plants both
within and outside utility rights-of
way,” was the policy statement
adopted by the Grange.
State Grange Master Charles
Wismer said, “It is urgent that we
develop regulations dealing with
careless use of herbicides to
prevent a public outcry which
could result in restriction of
private and agricultural use of
herbicides."
The Grange policy also stated
that landowners should be allowed
to elect to clear their own land with
reimbursement from utilities at a
rate equal to the cost of aerial
spraying that land; the property
owner would exempt the utility
from liability.
Fertilizers pose less peril to ozone layer
WASHINGTON, U.C. - Earth’s
ozone iayei, which screens out
certain sun lays causing skin
cancer, is in tar less danger from
farm fertilizers than had been
believed, scientisits at the U.S.
Department ot Agriculture an
nounced.
For years, some scientists had
estimated that 31) percent of the
nitrogen fertilizers farmers put on
crops escape into the air as nitrous
oxide and damage the ozone layer
about 20 miles above the surface.
In the stratosphere, nitrous oxide
breaks down to nitric acid which
can react with ozone.
Now, five years of research show
that less than two percent ot
nitrogen fertilizers applied to
crops escapes from the fields as
nitrous oxide, said research
chemist Arvin U. Muster and soil
scientist Gordon L. Hutchinson of
USDA’s Agricultural Research
Service.
They said the earlier high
estimates were based, on
inadequate data. '
These new findings come as good
news because of fears that the
increased use of nitrogen fer-
during the past few
decades and projected increases in
the future would pose a serious
threat to the ozone layer.
This layer filters out much of the
sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation
which, in excess, can increase the
incidence of skin cancer.
Mosier and Hutchinson found
that nitrous oxide enussions varied
depending on such factors as kind
of fertilizer, soil type, temperature
and amount of water present.
These factors interact to produce
varyutg amounts of nitrous oxide,
but emissions the scientists
measured were always between 0.4
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 6,1982—A31
and l.b percent of the nitrogen
fertilizer applied.
At Fort Collins, Colo., Mosier and
Hutchinson measured emissions
from corn, barley, alfalfa and
snuarbcci tiulds after they had
dppaca 00, 100 or 200 pounds of
nitrogen fertilizer per acre.
For comparison, the researchers
measured the amount of nitrous
oxide coming off virgin, dative
shortgrass rangelands.
"Our research showed that
croplands produce inure nitrous
oxide than a sumlar area of native
rangeland; but since only one
tenth of the Earth’s land surface is
cultivated, the total contribution
from uncultivated lands probably
' 'lu;t tiom croplands,’ ’ said
ilutclimsun.
"Given the tact that native
rangelands probably have con
tributed the same amount of
nitrous oxide tor many millions of
years, we probably are justified in
lessening our concern about the
ozone layer,” said Mosier.
It had been thought fur many
years that native grasslands and
forests contributed little if any,
nitrous oxide to the atmosphere
because they were not fertilized.
The nitrogen sources fur plant and
tree growth in such ecosystems is
from dissolved ammonia in rain
and snow, nitrate adhering to dust
articles, dinitrogen fixation, or
litrogen released from soil organic
natter.
USDA scientists have calculated
that about 10 percent of the
nitrogen that accumulates from
precipitation or dust on shorlgrass
rangelands us lost oack to the at
mosphere as nitrous oxide, mainly
through the activity of soil-borne
inK-' - '" ; •
Other scientists have now begun
to report similar emissions from
several cropped and native
mineral soils throughout the
United States and Canada. Their
research also shows that native
toresled areas produce about the
same level of nitrous oxide as
native rangelands.
Larger amounts of nitrous oxide
emissions have been found only in
organic soils and vegetables crops
that are heavily fertilized and
irrigated. These atypical sites
represent only a small fraction of
the world’s cultivated land area.
To collect meaningful data,
Mosier and Hutchinson had to
develop new techniques. One in
volved the development of a
reliable soil cover to collect gases.
This technique is inexpensive,
quick and simple to use, portable,
adaptable to a wide variety of field
situations and avoids many of the
pitfalls of other collectmg designs.
The cover looks much like an
upside-down water pail with a hole
to equalize air pressure inside and
outside the cover. This design
allows more accurate
measurements of the rate at which
gases accumulate under the cover.
Many previous studies of
gaseous movement in and out of
soils have been based, on soil
covers that fail to account for
errors caused by the covers
themselves affectiong .air
pressure.
Mosier and Hutchinson, along
with research ecologist William J.
Parton and range science
professor Robert G. Woodmansee,
Colorado State University, are
continuing these studies to include
grazed pasture lands.