Thread: 2,4-D and 2,4,5T

Rather than drag Inc's thread off topic any further I though I'd share some info about these herbicides. 2,4,5-T was used in Australia as a very effective blackberry spray but was considered too toxic to use on food crops by the 1970s and was phased out for other uses by the mid 1980s (to the detriment of blackberry infested areas)
2,4-D is a related herbicide that is used for the control of broadleaf weeds in many situations, it comes in two flavours, amine and ester. Ester has the capability to become volatile after being applied and drifting to other areas, it is pretty much banned these days due to spray drift killing sensitive crops and vineyards.
The amine flavour is still widely available and used as an important control for broadleaf weeds in many crop situations.

Agent Orange was a mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T used widely in the Vietnam war to defoliate jungle areas, this may have been OK except that the production process of these chemicals can produce dioxin if the process is not well controlled, particularly the temperature. Stories that I was told regarding production in Sydney of Agent Orange for military use alleged that production may not have been as well controlled as if it had been used for domestic purposes and may have had higher dioxin levels. Dioxin is an undesirable by product of the production of these chemicals, particularly 2,4,5-T. The upper reaches of Sydney harbour near the former ICI plant were heavily contaminated with dioxin (among other things).

When I was a kid we engaged a couple of greek guys to spray the blackberries on our farm, they used Blitz trucks with spray tanks on the back and were literally dripping with the spray from dodgy hoses and no PPE, I have wondered occasionally what became of those blokes and whether they had health problems later in life but it was very cool to come home from school and go riding around in a blitz truck for a 10 year old kid. By the way I still remember the smell of 245T as being quite pleasant and destinctive.

Regards,
Tote

Not sure what the father-in-law used but it was sprayed from an 80"

Scan10147 by Colin Radley, on Flickr



Colin