Outdoor & Yard / Compounds / Picloram

Picloram in the yard and garden

Moderate risk for your yard

Picloram — herbicide.

What is picloram?

Also known as: 4-Amino-3,5,6-trichloropyridine-2-carboxylic acid, Tordon, 4-Amino-3,5,6-trichloropicolinic acid, Borolin.

CAS number
1918-02-1
Molecular formula
C6H3Cl3N2O2
Molecular weight
241.5 g/mol
SMILES
C1(=C(C(=NC(=C1Cl)Cl)C(=O)O)Cl)N
PubChem CID
15965

Risk for people, pets,

Moderate risk

Picloram — herbicide.

Regulatory consensus

1 regulatory bodyhas classified Picloram.

AgencyYearClassificationNotes
Unknown——

Regulators apply different standards of evidence — animal-data weighting, exposure-pattern assumptions, epidemiological power thresholds — which is why two scientific bodies can review the same data and reach different conclusions. The disagreement is the data.

Where your yard encounter picloram

  • Agricultural Products — crop treatment

Safer alternatives

Lower-risk approaches that achieve a similar outcome to Picloram:

  • Organic mulching; Mechanical weeding; IPM
    Trade-offs: Labor-intensive; effective for small-scale or precision applications; no chemical residues; not scalable to large commercial operations without significant cost increase.
    Relative cost: 2-5× conventional

Frequently asked questions

Is picloram safe for your yard?

Picloram — herbicide.

What products contain picloram?

Picloram appears in: crop treatment (Agricultural products).

See Picloram in the outdoor app

Look up products containing picloram, compare to alternatives, and explore the full data record.

Open in outdoor View raw API data

Sources (1)
  1. PubChem (2026) — database

Reference data, not professional advice. Aggregates publicly available regulatory and scientific data; not a substitute for veterinary, medical, legal, or regulatory advice. Why we built ALETHEIA →