In a piece on falling Pomegranate supplies from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the Tribune Express we learn:
[Pomegranate trader Syed Zaman] Agha said that unseasonal rain had ruptured the skin of Kandahari pomegranates. He said last year’s harvest was bigger. He added that chemicals used in explosives and ammunition had ruined the soil and caused the leaves of pomegranate trees to lose their colour.
I have no reason to believe that the U.S. is using chemical weapons or defoliants like Agent Orange in Afghanistan. But it has used other weapons which have environmental effects beyond those of the usual explosives. Their use could explain why leaves of pomegranate trees lose their color and the fruits develop ruptured skins.
The soldiers and Marines have been very active around Kandahar and the Arghandab area which is famous for its Pomegranate orchards. They bombed complete villages to dust there and seemingly often use(d) their HIMARS (pdf) medium range artillery rockets for their purposes. Afghanistan claims $100 million in damage over those operations.
We predicted here that these systems would wreak havoc when they were first deployed but didn't anticipate the environmental and crop damage.
What happens with the solid rocket fuel that is not burned off in flight when a HIMARS rocket is fired on less than its maximum distance? That are presumably dozens of kilograms of rocket propellent left and they burn off in the one place where the warhead explodes.
We do know that the exhausts from these rocket are not healthy because the cabin of the vehicle they are fired from is supposed to keep those away from the launcher crews. These crews rightly complained (pdf) when that didn't work as planned.
According to this military report (pdf, pg 11, 12) the HIMARS rockets use the "Arcadene 360B hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene, aluminum perchlorate propellant" which produces 20 grams of hydrogene chlorid (HCl) per 100 grams of propellent when burned off. Hydrogene chlorid is definitely not environment friendly.
When a HIMARS rocket explodes at a range shorter than its maximum range it releases 20% of the left-over fuel as hydrogene chlorid which will eventually end dissolved in water (humidity) to very aggressive hydrochloric acid. The standard HIMARS rocket weights about 300 kilograms. Half to two-third of that mass, 150+ kilograms, is the solid propellent. Let's assume that firing it at half of the maximum range will only use two-third of the propellent. Then some 50+ kilogram of propellent will burn off in one place at impact and create some 10+ kilograms of hydrogene chlorid.
Anyone who ever worked in a chemistry lab, even at school level, will tell you that even one small drop of HCl is very unfriendly to many materials, especially biological ones. No, you do not want this on your fingers. Distributing kilograms of such with each HIMARS impact may well create the observed negative effects on whole Pomegranate orchards.
For the people living from selling the the fruits of these orchards the environmental and resulting economical impact of such rocket use may well mean that they will not have the money to survive the next winter.