Pesticide Breakdown (?) and Composting

I've seen a few concerns about what goes into commercially available compost and thought I'd do a little "look see" to see what I could find.

Interesting article by Washington State University about different types of pesticides and whether or not they are a concern for composting.

Here's another from Ohio State University.

And a PDF file from California.

Of course to be helpful you'd need to know WHAT was sprayed on the materials that are being used for composting.

Here's part of an article from Mid-Atlantic Gardening's blog about Veteran Compost: We also do not use any yard waste. This has
become a big deal recently, since herbicides like Imprelis
and Milestone (which are used on grass) can end up in yard waste
compost facilities and contaminate the finished compost. We test all of
our products in the greenhouse and in the laboratory.

Since their compost is ready in about 90 days, they are concerned with the length of time it takes some of these chemicals to breakdown. The reason I'm including this is that if you purchase compost in bulk, please take the time to ask about their use of yard waste.

I'm really grateful for people asking these questions because it got me thinking about my use of LeafGro. When researching the product, I was "encouraged" when their web site mentioned that their product is tested quarterly. Well I just sent them an email asking them FOR WHAT DO YOU TEST?

Thank you for posting these links. Some very good information there

Thanks! This will help a lot.

Lee Anne

Thanks great links! I would hate to contaminate my organic garden with anything. Compost the word compost just seems so friendly to the organic gardener just one more thing to be careful about.