38 Ate Today? Thank a Farmer. Better Farming | June/July 2024 crops: the lynch fileS ‘YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE LABEL’ Errors in Publication 75. By Patrick Lynch While I was working at OMAFRA in the early 1980s, a decision was made for us to go metric. One of the main reasons was that our major American trading partner was going metric. Ontario’s Publication 75 Guide to Weed Control was the bible of weed control. We all used it regularly. When it was published the year we switched to metric, there were a number of errors in the conversion from English units to metric. Most of these errors were minor and had little consequence about being off, but there was one major error concerning a forage herbicide mix of Embutox and MCPA. The rate of MCPA stated, if used, would kill new alfalfa. That spring was busy as usual: Farm calls about fertilizer burn, compaction, weed escapes. I remember sitting in my office answering a lot of them on various things. Marilyn Crabbe, who worked for Farm & Country, the forerunner to Better Farming, would call for story ideas and to see what was going on. I mentioned that the errors in Publication 75 were causing alfalfa to be killed off. I thought no more about. Then the magazine came out in early August with a story about the government publication causing crops to be killed. The ‘you know what’ hit the fan! Luckily, I was on holidays building a log house that my wife Sally and I tore down outside of Fullarton, and were putting back up. I was working away when my very quiet father-in-law dropped by to see me. He said the assistant deputy minister of agriculture wanted to talk to me. At first, I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I went to the nearest little store and phoned assistant deputy minister Dr. Clare Rennie. He said he wanted to see me in his office first-thing next morning. I said that I was on holidays. Then he asked how many errors there were in Publication 75. I told him about the one error that appeared six to eight times, and another bunch of minor errors. He finished by saying he wanted me to call him first-thing when I got back. I called him the first Monday I was back. We agreed to meet at the Cutten Club golf course in Guelph the next night. Now named Cutten Fields, the location is, and has always been, a pretty nice place to meet. In the meantime, some pressure was taken off the crop killing. The fuel gauges of a plane flying from Eastern Follow the label on your chemicals for best results. oasisamuel - stock.adobe.com
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