I can't respect bringing in banned products when I have no dandelions because I pulled them out by hand and my neighbours used an approved iron treatment which does work.
Umm, that is not really true. The iron stuff works by killing the leaves. If they are new/young dandelions this will atrophy the root and kill the entire plant. If they are years old, the root will not atrophy (it is well established and it can survive the leaves being killed) and may take MULTIPLE treatments or just may never work. Went through this at home. Spray the new stuff, leaves all turn black and die. Month later same large dandelions are back, do it again, repeat... Finally pulled them and got 8 to 12" of root (where it broke off), month later they were back...
Which goes to pulling, unless you get the entire root it comes right back. Works good for young ones, not at all for ones that are well established. Root will atrophy if you keep up on pulling the same ones over and over again.
So lawns that have been well kept in the past (maybe ones sprayed with the old stuff in the past) what you said may work, not for ones that have been neglected for years. Another enviro friendly options are things like a weed torch. But it basically has the same limitations as above. Kill the foliage and hope the roots atrophy, repeat... Boiling water also works, but kills the grass around it, with some technique you can be more focused.
The main active ingredient in the banned weed killer is 2,4-D (each brand has a unique cocktail of stuff but it is the 2,4-d that is doing most of the work), this BTW was 50% of the Agent Orange/Agent Purple mixture (although most believe it was the other half that was the really bad part). In the weed killers though the mixture is no where near as high. IMO the main real world issue with the banned killers were people (and lawn companies) who sprayed the entire yard (and not just the weeds) and people who used the granular stuff. Spraying the entire yard just put more chemical on the yard, and into the environment than needed, it does not work in the soil it works on the weed's leaves (where it is absorbed). The solid stuff is even worse, it has to be absorbed into the leaves of the plant so you end up putting way more on than needed hoping some later rain will will let it absorb... Just spraying the weeds and not the entire lawn saved money and saved the environmental impact, instead of education they went ban... The current law in Ontario still allows golf courses, fields etc. to use it, and they just spray it everywhere...
Now if some law breaker here does spray the banned stuff, hopefully they learn from the above, buy liquid and only spray the weeds. BTW, anyone with any knowledge on the subject will be able to smell the stuff, it has a very strong and unique "ester" smell so it may not be so easy to get away with (smart people will know what you did and may report you...). More you spray, stronger the smell.
Thanks all
