Can you do without slug control?

If you can't - and I would imagine that's most arable farmers - then you need to take the threat to metaldehyde very seriously.

We've reported on how it has been detected in water courses in the autumn (http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/10/02/112441/slug-control-threatened-by-metaldehyde-residues-being-found-in.html). The problem is that it cannot be removed from water, unlike most other pesticides.

It must be stressed this is not a health issue. The levels being detected exceed the [arbitrary] standard for drinking water of 0.1ppb, while it would take 3000 times that level to cause health problems.

That said, farming has to clean up its act. The fact that metaldehyde has been found widely in raw surface water above the legal limit in the autumn - the peak time for agricultural use - rather than in the summer, suggests it is not a problem caused by garden users. If these peaks occur again next autumn the chances are the product will be banned.

That's why new guidelines are being brought into place (http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/01/15/113783/application-limits-to-be-placed-on-slug-killer-to-avoid-potential-ban.html).

But these limits alone may not be enough - they will help in reducing the amount applied - but it is how it is being applied that will also account. How do you apply metaldehyde now? Are you careful to keep it away from water courses? If you're not, and industry sources suggest that some farmers might not be, then a change of mindset needs to happen. Otherwise slug control will get a whole lot harder, and more expensive. It might just make oilseed rape impossible to grow.

Without metaldahehyde I do not know how people will grow OSR or wheat afterwards as the crop relys on it so much. When it comes to going around the headlands it pays to keep another 6 meters out away from the outside tramline. Lets try and do something together before we lose it completely.

Use methiocarb?

Or consider a better way to apply than with a quad bike - comething like an old Autocast unit bolted onto a set of rolls? No chance of any in the ditches then.

Unfortunately metaldehyde is making the news again. 

We've had exceedances of the 0.1ppm limit in water again this autumn. 

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2010/12/01/124567/Metaldehyde-in-water-breaches-EU-maximum.htm

Is that because the advice has not been followed or just because it is impossible to stop the active from getting into water once the drains start flowing? 

Whatever it doesn't paint a very rosy picture for its future, I suspect, even if we are improving compared with 2008. 

Mike Abram - Arable Deputy Editor:

Is that because the advice has not been followed or just because it is impossible to stop the active from getting into water once the drains start flowing? 

Dont know where most rape is grown, but before it started snowing the drains hadnt been running here. 18" of snow now but as it hasnt started melting I doubt anything is comming from the drains anyway.

So, advice not followed. Lazy farmers not doing as they were told, or hoping they would not be caught out. Going to have to ban spinning disc application in my view. You can apply pellets with more precision than that.

We have 4 Stocks pelleters on the farm. Most of the spreading is done by 2 Twin units are mounted on the back of a modified Hilux and spread at 24m.

Since the advent of LERAPs we have had 6 or 7 metre buffer strips against all watercourses (every side of every field down here).

Each applicator is tray tested by ourselves but however you set the trimmer, there are always the odd pellet that get thrown 36+ metres.

If we lost metaldehyde, we'd have to move to methiocarb & ferric phosphate and accept the increased costs but ultimately we'd have to stop growing winter oilseed rape altogether and fallow/spring crop instead.

Is there any data on which soil types leach more?

Brisel:

If we lost metaldehyde, we'd have to move to methiocarb & ferric phosphate and accept the increased costs

Methiocarb would be banned in 5 minutes if we all replaced metaldehyde with it acre for acre.