Hep Ragwort

[MEL78]

Hi after a bit of help had a couple of ragwort plants growing in the garden (as I have neglected it this year in favour of the allotment ) just pulled them up and was going to just bin them but have been checking on the net and as I didn't wear gloves am now a bit concerned with some of the stuff I have been reaidng about toxins getting in through the skin etc.....also is it safe just to put the couple of plants I've got in the bin.......

Thanks for any help

[MKG]

Ragwort is not in any way dangerous to handle - just don't eat it. The toxins are not even formed until the stuff has gone though the digestive system. Absorption through the skin (as far as ragwort is concerned) is a fairy story.

So yes - bin it, or compost it (also perfectly safe).

Mike

[MEL78]

Thanks Mike I really shouldn't look things up on the net ....

[Green Aura]

Unless they're on Ish of course

[grahamhobbs]

Is it still an offence to allow ragwort to grow on your land ?

[Flo]

I believe that it's the letting it go to seed that is the offence.

[MKG]

http://www.ragwortfacts.com/ragwort-myths.html

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Mike

[trinder]

Mike thank you very much for that ragwort link. I consider myself to be a reasonably knowledgeable horse person but got most of the myths / facts wrong. I posted it in one of the equine sites that I visit and it was very gratefully received .

[trinder]

I spoke to soon, when saying that other people on my horsey website , like me had been misguided. I seems the credibility of this website ( http://www.ragwortfacts.com/ragwort-myths.html) is under question.
The only name I can find on the website is Ester Hegt, a Dutch campaigner for ragwort's cause. I did a PubMed search and there isn't ONE author with the name 'Hegt', so how she is a scientific expert is beyond me...
So just to advise it may not be a factual piece at all?

[MKG]

Esther, ably backed by Pieter Pelser Ph.D., Leiden University, Netherlands.

I suppose the whole ragwort thing is developing into a similar standoff as has happened with badgers and bovine TB, this time between horse keepers and lovers of the cinnabar moth. However, most of the claims about ragwort are easily checkable on the net. The site I gave you the link to merely provides a good round-up of current knowledge.

The credibility of the site is under question by whom, I wonder?

Mike

[trinder]

Thanks Mike. I have to say when the first negative feedback came in, It did get me searching but I could only the Ester Hegt reference. Where did you see the other?
This is the link on the horsey website. http://www.network54.com/Forum/235380/t ... +the+facts.

[Millymollymandy]

Don't worry the cinnabar moth is alive and kicking here in Brittany where ragwort abounds and nobody except British horse owners gives a stuff about it! The cinnabar moth also feeds on groundsel so it does have other food, so long as everyone doesn't weed their gardens too well. I have the pleasure of watching both the caterpillar and the moth here in my garden, and as I don't have any horses/livestock I let the ragwort grow in wild patches. I would be jolly frustrated by the amount of ragwort here though if I was a horse owner.

[Andy Hamilton]

Hmm, I have heard that people have died from picking ragwort. This is ancedotal so happy to be proved wrong. But I heard of a vet who spent a whole day picking ragwort without gloves, so pulling many, many plants. He keeled over at the end of the day.

Interestingly too, I got the train through oxfordshire the other day and there were high concentrations of Oxford ragwort visable from the train window!

[that_sarah_girl]

oh my gosh...I had no idea that ragwort is (is thought?) to be dangerous....

over summer holidays my stepdaughter came home from her nana's house with a cinnabar caterpillar and I kept picking ragwort to feed it until it turned into a cacoon
That was a good few weeks ago now and I'm still alive....

[Andy Hamilton]

oh my gosh...I had no idea that ragwort is (is thought?) to be dangerous........

Well, the rest of the story about the vet was that the farmer was picking and he was fine. So, you have to handle a lot of it of it for a while and be suseptable to poisioning. I wouldn't worry too much. And, like I said this is only anecdotal.