Herbicide Drift
New leaves come out cupped, twisted, narrow or fern-like with fanned or squiggly veins, while the older leaves below them stay normal. Nothing is spreading and nothing is catching. A growth-regulator weedkiller drifted in on the wind, or arrived in mulch, compost, hay, or a sprayer used earlier for something else.
Disease checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of it
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Wait before you pull anything
Plants hit by drift alone usually grow out of it over a few weeks. Keep them watered and give them the time.
Try this first2Test your mulch and compost
Persistent herbicides ride in on hay, straw, grass clippings and manure. Grow a few pea or bean seedlings in a sample before you spread more.
3Keep a weedkiller-only sprayer
Never use the same sprayer for weedkiller and for anything you put on a plant you want to keep. Residue survives rinsing.
dedicated garden sprayer 2 gallon4Talk to the neighbour
Ask what was sprayed and when. It is the only way to confirm the product and stop it recurring next season.
5Do not spray in wind
Apply weedkillers on calm days, keep the nozzle low and use a coarse droplet setting.
6Ask before eating a badly hit crop
If a food plant took a direct hit rather than faint drift, call your extension office about the label's harvest restrictions.
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Which plants get herbicide drift
Every plant we cover that gets herbicide drift, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same disease can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Solanaceae, with 4 of the 5 affected plants.
- Solanaceae4 plants
When to treat
Photograph and date it the day you notice it, because symptoms show up days to two weeks after the drift and the record is the only way to work out what happened.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for herbicide drift and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets herbicide drift, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.