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. 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

-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