Goodness! I'm so sorry. I don't know about all the chemicals and how they affect different plants. Did you research Prodiamine? Maybe you can learn something from a google search. Hopefully it won't permanently harm your asparagus. Asparagus is a commitment and I would be so mad!

I found this "Photodecomposition and volatilization occur when the product remains on the surface for prolonged periods without incorporation. Strongly adsorbed by soil; not readily leached." If that means what I think it means, and I am no expert, you might want to leave it without watering (or did he water it in?) Seems like it might decompose and evaporate if it hasn't been watered in. The listed uses, however, don't mention edible crops. Another fact sheet said it should be applied to non food sites.

From a pdf of prodiamine safety data sheet from the manufacturer Prime Source, LLC. I hope the link works:

Hazard Statements: May cause an allergic skin reaction

Causes eye irritation

May cause drowsiness or dizziness

Suspected of causing cancer

May cause damage to organs through prolonged or repeated contact

Environmental Fate:

Prodiamine: Does not bioaccumulate.

Persistent in soil.

Stable in water.

Immobile in soil.

Sinks in water (after 24 hours)

I think this info is aimed more at the applicator who would be exposed to it on a daily basis.

From a pdf from Oregon State University "dissipation of

norflurazon and prodiamine was characterized by a rapid initial loss

followed by slow disappearance of the remaining herbicide."

I am not sure what I would do, besides being REALLY angry that it was sprayed. I looked at what I call conventional sources. There are sources out there that lean against all chemicals, that might have more alarming info, but I can't speak for their veracity. Personally I wouldn't eat it this year, maybe not next year. And I might plant sunflowers in with the asparagus for a season or two.

I am steaming mad on your behalf. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Your lawn guy is an idiot and should be fired.

If he is a trained pro and has an applicator's license, then surely he knows that Prodiamine is NOT LABELED for use on edible plantings and that it is, in fact, illegal to use such products in a manner for which they are not labeled. If he is not a trained pro and does not have an applicator's license, I wouldn't want him on my property using chemical products of this type because he does not know what he is doing or he does not care or both. There is no excuse for such carelessness on his part. I'd be all over his company's webpage and facebook page, if they have them, screaming bloody murder about their incompetence and warning people not to use them, but not actually screaming----I'd be a true southern belle type steel magnolia---but I would be firm about what happened and firm about it being totally unacceptable. It is their mistake, not yours, and they should fix it.

If this happened to me, I wouldn't eat anything from that area for at least a year. I'd watch that asparagus crop like a hawk and if it failed to emerge properly or if it failed to grow properly, I'd expect the idiot who ruined my crop to come back with a backhoe or other excavating equipment, remove the damaged plants, remove the contaminated soil, and then replace the contaminated soil with a like amount of a fresh, clean, high-quality soil/compost blend and replace the asparagus plants with 2 or 3 year old asparagus crowns. If irreparable harm is done to your planting, that is what they owe you. You didn't cause this and it shouldn't be up to you to have to remediate the soil that they contaminated. At this point, it doesn't matter if he is ignorant or careless--what he did was flat out wrong.

What you really need now is for no moisture to fall on that area for 14 days. It is my understanding that without a certain amount of moisture within 14 days, the chemical may degrade without being activated. Unfortunately, much of OK has rain in its forecast this weekend and early next week. Maybe you'll get lucky and it won't rain there.

Surely you cannot be the first person who's had this happen to them, right? So, I went looking to see what I could find, and look here.....it has happened to someone else. The linked info is from a Pro Board and describes essentially what happened to you, though it only refers to a vegetable garden in general and not specifically to asparagus.

Prodiamine Accidentally Spread in Vegetable Garden

There are very few pre-emergents labeled for use in a vegetable garden, and there is a reason for that. I assume the reason is that the chemical compounds can accumulate in plant tissue.

Preen is one pre-emergent labeled for use in a vegetable garden, and it comes in both organic (corn gluten meal) and synthetic (Treflan) versions. I wouldn't even use the synthetic one in my garden, and the corn gluten meal is most effective if you use it without fail every single year(multiple times per year) so some of its compounds build up in the soil over time. It isn't all that effective if only used once, and its effectiveness wears off after about 6 weeks, but at least the CGM doesn't harm most garden plants. I know you didn't intend to have a pre-emergent herbicide put in your asparagus bed, but I just wanted to go ahead, for the sake of anyone who finds this by Googling 5 or 10 years from now, and make it clear that if a person did want to use a pre-emergent in a veggie garden, then Preen would be a fairly safe choice as opposed to the Prodiamine that accidentally was spread or sprayed on your asparagus bed.

Good luck and keep us posted on what, if anything, happens.

Dawn

Oh dear. I am grieving with you all. I have put off building an asparagus bed for many decades and have decided it's time. Have the perfect place in mind. Knowing how long it has taken me to decide, I was mightily pained on your behalf. Yes, I'd have steam coming out my ears!

Thanks, everyone. I did some more digging and found a phone number to call the people who make the product. They said since it hasn't been tested on edibles, they could only hazard a guess of 1 year and they thought that might be longer than necessary. But I would much rather be safe. So, the only one who thinks it is okay is the man who sprayed it. Amy, why sunflowers? Also, wouldn't it bother the asparagus to disturb the bed by digging? Also, if I plant sunflowers, which ones grow tall on thick sturdy stalks? The ones I've grown in the past flop. I had them in the front bed and didn't like the look of flopping flowers, so I dug them up.

Sunflowers are "hyperaccumulators" they accumulate toxins in their tissue. You can then dispose of them (I wouldn't compost). This article claims they are using them to clean up radiation. Farmers Almanac has this article. Here's another article that mentions mustard, a particular kind of corn, tobacco and hemp as other phytoremediators. I have no idea what variety of sunflower would be best. And sunflowers also can also be alleopathic (don't try to grow pole beans on them.) I doubt it would bother asparagus, but you could go with mustard. Brassica juncea includes canola, mizuna and some others I'm not familiar with, but I bet Kitazawa would have lots of options. Brassica carinata was not something I was familiar with, but it is also known as Abyssinian Cabbage. You might want to read wikipedia's article on phytoremediators to see if there is something else you might want to grow with the asparagus. Cannas were mentioned, but I think they would compete too much with the asparagus.

They should fix it. New plants. New soil. Don't eat it and take a chance. They must make this right.

We all have unhappy experiences with various vendors. I'm not a complainer. If I can understand how the mistake has been made and am unable to unequivocally place the blame, I don't say anything. I recently sent a $20.00 box of cookies to my mom, who lives in assisted living. She didn't get them. The cookie vendor said they were delivered, signed by USPS. I called the assisted living home and found out they set out the packages in their activity room. My guess was that either they were not delivered by USPS or the vendor lied, or most likely, some other resident in the home picked em up and enjoyed the cookies. Next time I send her something, I'll let the home know to deliver them personally to her door. . . and so sucked up the $20.00. Had substandard sirloin steaks three times in a row at a favorite restaurant. Weren't broiled or char-grilled, but gray on both sides and too done throughout. First time I called it to their attention, and when offered a discount, declined. Second time, I called it to their attention, and declined. Third time, I asked for the manager, picked up the gray steak and shook it in front of her and said, "Does this look grilled? Does it look medium rare? If you are going to say grilled steak, GRILL it, don't saute it. This is MY mistake. If I want a good grilled steak, I now know not to order one from here, but to order from a steak house." She asked if I wanted another one, I said, "NO." I want chicken enchiladas. And then proceeded to lecture her on how to grill a steak, and advised her to take it off the menu. And then accepted their offer of the free meal. No. No. When some job is done and it's fixable and understandable give the folks a break--ESPECIALLY if they offer to fix it. But if something is done that harms rather than helps and they try to weasel out of it, no. I'd be telling them they have to fix it. I got an outdoor welcome mat a couple months ago. When it arrived, it was 3/8 of an inch thick--not MY idea of an outdoor welcome mat. The surface appearance was as pictured. I groaned, and was not happy. So I wrote to them and told them I was not happy with the thickness of it, and that it was such a poor example of what an outdoor welcome mat should be, I was going to have to tell everyone on Facebook about it and tell them not to order it. They wrote back, apologized, and asked how I wanted it made right--they'd give me credit for it, replace it, whatever. I said I'd keep it but wasn't happy. They wrote back and said, "Keep it, we'll return your money." I wrote back and said that wasn't necessary but because I appreciated their offer, I wouldn't say anything about it. They wrote back and said to keep it and they were returning my money anyway--and did! Now how could one not love a company like THAT!!! They earned a customer for life.

While it is standard to plant mustard or other hyperaccumulators to clean up herbicide residue from contaminated soil (for example, if your have brought in mulch or compost containing post-emergent herbicide residue that you weren't aware of), it is harder to clean up contamination from a pre-emergent herbicide.

The problem with planting any plant that is a hyperaccumulator, whether it is sunflowers or mustard or whatever, will be that the chemical accidentally used in the asparagus bed is a pre-emergent herbicide---which keeps seeds from sprouting, so you cannot just sow seeds into that area and expect them to sprout.

Assuming the pre-emergent was spread at the proper rate (and since it carelessly was spread where its use is prohibited, I'm no even going to assume it was spread at the proper rate), nothing that is a dicot is going to germinate there since its purpose is to prevent germination of broad-leaved weeds (which are dicots) in a field of grasses (which are monocots). Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any kind of monocots (like asparagus) that are used as bioaccumulators. The reason for this is that monocots are not good bioaccumulators.

So, in order to start bioremediation now while the pre-emergent levels in the soil are at their highest, you'd have to start the accumulator type plants, which are dicots, as seeds in some sort of containers either indoors or out, grow them on for a little while and then transplant them into the affected soil. And, if the asparagus bed has been growing well, then there's likely a huge mass of roots underground which, depending on how far below the surface the roots are, might make transplanting something into the bed impossible. Eventually the pre-emergent's effectiveness will wane and some sort of accumulator plant then can be seeded into that area, but that is weeks or months away, and by then, the tissue of the asparagus plants likely already will have accumulated the herbicide residue themselves, which is why this year's asparagus shouldn't be eaten.

Since the chemical herbicide in question is labeled for use on grasses (which are monocots), and asparagus is a monocot, I would think that the herbicide shouldn't hurt the existing asapagus plants themselves, other than if any seed from last year's asparagus plants might have sprouted and given you new plants. Those hypothetical new plants might be affected. However, since the herbicide isn't labeled or approved as being safe for use on edible crops, the contamination renders this year's asparagus crop inedible. No one can say for how long the asparagus might remain contaminated since they haven't researched it. That's the whole issue. Anyone from the herbicide manufacturer or applicator company who tries to say the asparagus should be okay to eat in a month or six months or next year is just guessing because they don't have proven research to back it up. If they did have research showing you could use this chemical in an asparagus bed and then eat the aspragus X number of weeks or months later, then they'd have it labeled for use on asparagus beds with the caveat being a re-entry/harvest time of a specified period of weeks or months, and they don't.

I am, always have been and always will be opposed to the use of synthetic herbicides of any kind near a garden plot where edible plants are grown. No good comes from it. Between accidental application of non-approved herbicides in food-growing areas exactly like what happened to Carol's asparagus bed, accidental herbicide drift through the air (like what happened to Kim's market garden last year) or herbicide carryover in manure, compost, hay, etc., there's far too much damage done to edible crop areas by herbicide use every year and these things will continue to happen when herbicides are used near edible gardens or farm fields. The contamination is always the fault of the applicator. Always. It is not the fault of the innocent gardener who themselves would never use these products in their edible garden. Since many of us who raise edible crops do everything possible to grow as organically as possible and to avoid using synthetic chemicals in our gardens precisely because we want to raise untainted food (otherwise, we'd just go to the store and buy conventionally-raised produce), this is a serious ongoing issue. When the applicator, who was paid to apply this chemical to the lawn, is careless and contaminates an edible garden where this chemical cannot be safely used, the applicator is legally responsible for the damage done and should fix it. Period. Of course, some companies will try to avoid being held liable for their actions and will brush off complaints and say the food should be fine to eat next week or next month or next year or whatever, but they're just trying to avoid being held responsible now for their actions.

And, let's use a hypothetical situation. Suppose Carol was a market grower who had jumped through all the hoops and spent all the money (it takes hundreds of dollars) to become certified organic so she could sell her produce as "Certified Organic" at the local farmer's market. Well, guess what? This chemical contamination would have just rendered her "Certified Organic" certification worthless and, after soil remediation was complete, she'd have to start all over to become certified again and it would take years and a lot of money to earn back the Certified Organic certification. It also might take a lawsuit against the applicator to make them replace or otherwise remediate the contaminated soil and to make them pay the cost of going through the certification process again. They also should be liable for lost income during that period of years since Certified Organic produce sells at a higher price than commercially grown produce. This is why careless applicators should be held liable---because if they get away with being careless, they have no incentive to change.

Since I'm fairly certain the man won't be reimbursing me for the damage, and the asparagus bed is in the best spot for it to be, would it be possible/advisable to build raised beds over the same spot and just start over? I've done a bit of research and for the man to rent a backhoe and purchase 3-yr-old crowns, we're approaching $300...that's without the new soil. I will be reporting him. Just not sure who to report him to. By him telling me that this didn't hurt the asparagus, and that we could still eat it, he has shown complete disregard for the health and well-being of my family...or he is completely ignorant of the chemicals he works with. Either way, he shouldn't be let loose on others.

For what it's worth, I've found the state agencies entirely unhelpful in actually regulating the chemicals and "professionals" the law mandates (if weakly) that they regulate. For instance, I have more than once attempted to contact both the state and the offending lawn chemical application company when a technician is mis applying the chemical according to the guidelines, such as spraying pre-emergent pesticides in a 20mph okie wind. No avail. I can't find any reference to any penalty for non compliance.

Has as anyone else gone down this road? More knowledge or greater success?

I have sent our applicator a certified letter requesting recompense for losses and have heard nothing. Our dept of ag has been useless. Promises broken over and over. I believe people should just do the right thing. If I cause you damage I should make it right. Period. Just don't lie hide and deny.

Absolutely, luvncannin! People should do the right thing. And whenever a company does this, (and I have had a few), I am their loyal customer forever.

fitzjennings, As someone whose garden gets hit by postemergent berbicide drift almost every year (and often multiple times per year), I agree with you. While we'd like to think the government agencies tasked with regulating the use of these chemicals will do something about their misuse, the reality is that most of them do nothing or do nothing that really matters or are so slow to act as to be pretty much useless. Still, I think it is important to try to work within the established system.

Kim, Do you mean that after everything you went through last year, nothing has happened? That is so disappointing, but not exactly shocking either. We gardeners are "the little people" in agriculture, and it is easy for Ag Departments to ignore us, while giving preference to large commercial growers.

I am afraid that with both the issues of herbicide drift and herbicide carryover in compost, manure and mulch materials, we all are pretty much on our own and no one else is going to try to protect our plants from these materials.

Here in our rural area, seemingly everyone but me---local ranchers, the railroads, the crews who maintain/control roadside vegetation for the state, the counties and the cities....all use herbicides that drift through the air and kill gardens and, basically, many of them (not all) don't care if they use them in a manner that allows drift to travel to our gardens and kill our plants. It drives me up the wall. I would never use any product in any way that it would harm someone else's plants on their property, but I guess maybe it is too much to expect most other people to behave in the same manner. I did notice that the last time one of our neighborhood ranchers had someone spray his fields with a herbicide, he sat on his ATV between his place and our place and watched/supervised the whole process, and nothing drifted onto our place and killed my tomato plants that time. I appreciate that greatly because it is the exception to the rule.

If only everyone would do the right thing. Surely at some point in their lives they were taught to always do the right thing? My upbringing in the 1960s/1970s involved exactly those sort of lessons. Sadly, the world has changed a lot since then. Now people often just do whatever the heck they want with no regard for how it affects others. That is a very sad thing.

Dawn