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Two of the herbicides recalled by Nufarm, Crop Care and Syngenta were contaminated by up to seven different chemicals.

Documents seen by The Weekly Times show the recalled Ramrod Flowable (active ingredient: propachlor; Nufarm)was contaminated by a combination of chemicals including atrazine, simazine, terbutryn, prometryn, diflufenican, propyzamide, and MCPA, while the Gesagard (prometryn; Syngenta) was contaminated with thiadiazuron, ametryn, diflufenican, simazine and propachlor.

Soil toil: Spring onions (above) and brown onions (below) damaged by contaminated Ramrod Flowable herbicide.

The chemicals are used in herbicides sprayed on broadacre crops.

Ramrod Flowable is used on onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflower, beetroot and grain crops maize, sorghum and sweet corn.

Gesagard is used on carrots, celery, leeks, potatoes, chickpeas, peas, cotton and perennial grass and ryegrass seed crops while Primextra Gold is used on maize, sorghum and sweet corn.

The level of contamination ranged from 1-1078mg/kg.

Syngenta has not released the contamination details for affected Primextra Gold batches.

This is not the first time contaminated herbicides have cost growers millions of dollars.

In 1991, E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company, now referred to as DuPont, sold contaminated herbicide to ornamental tree growers in the US. The contaminated herbicide, known as benlate, destroyed millions of plants.

More than 2100 growers won a liability suit that saw DuPont pay more than $510 million in damage claims.

An agronomist, who did not want to be named, said herbicide contamination essentially created a new product that could be “very dangerous”.

“It’s not known how the chemicals react to one another and what happens when they are sprayed by humans, on food and on the environment,” he said.