Hey Rat Girl,
I am sorry I don't belong to your church of the organics. I have visited organic
orchards, and see a lot of spoiled fruit on the ground. I have tried organic
sprays, and from my experience, they don't work. I loose very little fruit to
insect damage.
There is no good organic spray for Apple Maggot, etc. The organic sprays are a pain

to use. For example, Surround leaves an ugly film on the fruit, which would make
insect damage almost preferable. Organic sprays and other preventatives have a long
way to go to get me to use them. Having a small backyard orchard, I value ALL of my
fruit, and am not willing to sacrifice a good portion of it on the alter of
organics.

Sherwin D.

paghat wrote:

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

I don't know what part of the planet you live in, but in the Midwest here, the
yellow jackets can sometimes be a big problem. Haven't seen many this year,
but previously, they went after my peaches. I had one good sting when I tried
to pick up
a fallen peach on the ground, and it took a lot of antihistamine to quiet that
one down.

EV also doesn't seem to be growing fruit, or she would not be so complacent
about
apple maggots, plum curcullio's, etc. The only time I stop spraying is when
the blossoms are out, since I don't want to kill my pollinators (bees).

Sherwin Dubren

More & more orchards are going organic.

And plenty of them are going out of business.

Clearly your love-affair with
deadly toxins all over your fruit isn't necessary, so yr just foolin'
yourself to adhere to slogans of the 1950s when DDT was heralded as the
savior of the planet. One of the things the organic orchards encourage is
a healthy wasp population, & don't worry too much that wasps do also feed
on fruit that has already fallen to the ground & burst open. It's true,
though, that chemical-dependent non-organic gardens so screw up the
balance in their orchards that they end up with MORE harmful insects &
thus need MORE toxic chemicals.

You are in a dream world if you think the helpful insects can stop these pests.
These wasps do not go after my fallen fruit, as I do a good job of cleaning that
up. They punch holes in the fruit on the tree, and go at it.



A study conducted by Washington State University from 1994 to 1999, &
reported in NATURE & elsewhere, showed conclusively that orchard
productivity was greater in organic farms than for those which depended on
pesticides & other chemicals.

I don't believe it. I personally know organic orchards where they loose a
good portion of their fruit.

Furthermore, in taste tests for the organic
& non-organic, the organic fruits were the hands-down winners.

How can pesticides effect the taste of the fruit? On the contrary, some
organic orchards are limiting their selection of fruit to varieties with more
resistance to pests and fungicides. However, these varieties are not the
very best tasting of those available. Unfortunately, it seems like the best
tasting fruit has the most susceptibility.





In the WSU studies, the organic group did not use synthetic pesticides or
fertilizer, but made use of organic compost, mulch, pheromone-mating
disruption of harmful insects, Bacillus thuringiensis, & hand-thinning of
fruit. The non-organic farms used a conventional array of synthetic
fertilizers & pesticides (inclusive of herbicides) & chemical fruit
thinners.

The study concluded that organic orchards ranked #1 for environmental AND
economic sustainability. Larger crops sold for more money from the organic
farmers; the non-organic farmers not only ended up with smaller & inferior
harvests that earned them less money, but they had higher costs from all
those ghastly chemicals.

Thats because the public is being bambozeled into thinking that organically
grown fruit is so much more healthful that the consumer winds up paying
sometimes double the price for it. Most of these pesticides are burn't off
by the sun. Also, anyone with brains will wash all the fruit they grow or
buy, even if it claims to be organically grown. I find the organically grown
fruits and vegetables in my stores is not worth the premium prices asked. I
just do a good job of washing it. The fruit I grow is controlled so that I don't

spray trees that are due for picking in the next few weeks.



A similar study on organic vineyards was conducted by Cornell University.
One of their organic techniques (to control harmful insects) was to
maximize the population of predatory wasps. Similar studies in Vermont
corn crops, & Idaho potato crops, found organic methods of pest control
completely effective. Yet another WSU study of pear orchards found that
harmful insects in the orchard were controlable by not mowing the
surrounding fields so often, as vibrant meadows were attractive habitats
for such beneficial insects as, ahem, wasps.

If you think that nature will take care of things for us, just go into a wooded
area where you will find wild fruit trees, or those from a deserted orchard, and
look at the fruit condition. It is usually attacked like crazy.



As a wonderful bonus, the organic farmers all report that insect pests
become fewer year by year -- whyich is not true for the chemical-reliant
planet-poisoners.

Not in my neighborhood.



That's just the science conducted in the field with real orchards, not one
person freaked out about wasps & convinced the wasps will get all their
fruit if the poisons are insufficient.

It's not just the wasps that are the problem. In fact they are usually one of
the lesser pests. You will be happy to know I use 'organic' traps to catch
them with apple juice as a lure. See, I am not close minded about organics,
but I think they can only solve part of the problem.



So when I hear someone claiming the wasps are so horrid they have no
choice but to poison their orchards, then pretending that stopping for a
couple weeks while there are flowers is all it takes to not harm bees, I
don't give them much credibility.

The bees are most susceptible to harm when they are feeding on the pollen
from fruit blossoms. I have never found any dead bees around my trees.



This is also why "conventional" chemical-reliant orchards are selling out
& letting their land be carved up for development, but ORGANIC orchards
are the fastest growing segment segment of US, Canadian, & European
agriculture.

Possibly because there are big bucks now in selling overpriced organic products.



So to paraphrase you, I don't know where on the planet yhou've been, but
not in a healthy orchard lately. And thanks for the warning that you
harvest your peaches off the ground -- that'd make yours one of the e-coli
orchards besides toxic as all hell!

I will match my home orchard any day to yours, because there are other
ways to contaminate the area, like not keeping it clean.



-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com