zxcvbob wrote:

EV wrote:
So, obviously, more is less.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/env_pes_use

In the US, an average of 1599 kg of pesticide are used for each hectare of
cropland, that's 3525 lb per hectare. 1 hectare= approx. 2.5 acres, so that makes
it about 1,410 lbs of pesticide per acre.

Where did that statistic come from?

Did you check this link?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/env_pes_use


So if home gardeners are using just twice that amount, it comes to 2,820 lbs of
pesticide per acre. If they all stopped using pesticides, it would be a
significant amount not going into the environment.

But they don't use twice as much per acre.

That isn't going to fly here, Bob. It's a non-argument.

Home gardeners might use
twice as much pesticide per fruit tree, but they don't have that many
trees.

Please don't be coy. Twice as much per tree is still twice as much, whether it's on an
acre or not. It all adds up.

They don't grow crops like soybeans and corn and cotton. They
also use way too much chemicals on their lawns, but I doubt that even
*that* comes to 1/100 of the amount you are saying. Being able to scale
a dubious statistic and convert to different units or measure doesn't
magically give it credibility.

Pardon me for saying so, but that's a silly comment. I converted the units because I
know that Americans are not familiar with kilograms, and acres are more meaningful to
most people than hectares. Whichever units it's described in, the numbers add up to
the same amount. I wasn't hiding anything.

I was looking for an overall statistic of pesticide use. Since that doesn't satisfy
you, you can go the USGS site where they list close to 200 pesticides and their
estimated rate of application, complete with useage maps:
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/index.html

I've gone to the individual pesticide useage pages on the USGS site and just added up
some of the totals (broken down by crop). I chose the ones that sounded familiar to
me. I don't know which are, or aren't, the most heavily used.

These figures represent the total estimated amounts, in lbs, used on all crops (for
agricultural use) in a year (1992) in the US. Since not all counties reported, and it
is now 12 years later, I expect that the numbers are much higher now. The maps show
the distribution of the application if you're interested.

Atrazine: 63,947,512 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/atrazin.html

Alachlor: 25,647,683 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/alclr.html

Captan: 3,774,667 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/captan.html

Diazinon: 1,066,220 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/diaznon.html

Malathion: 2,689,831 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/malthion.html

Maneb: 2,808,304 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/maneb.html

Phosmet: 904,832 lbs per year
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/phosmt.html

That's just 7 of almost 200 pesticides listed by the USGS as being used for ag
purposes. Together these pesticides alone come to 97,064,382 lbs of pesticide per year
.... almost a BILLION pounds from just 7 pesticides.

Home growers were not surveyed. Also not factored in are the pesticides that people
apply to their lawns or for insect control in and around the home. Now, if home
gardeners use 2 to 6 times as much pesticide as commercial growers ... even if they
constitute a fraction, in acres, of commercial production, it's still a significant
amount.

I, too, thought that the figure of 1,410 lbs pesticide per acre sounded high. But when
you look at the total use of just 7 or hundreds of pesticides, it doesn't really seem
all that implausible.


I have found that non-chemical controls are better at reducing the
insect levels to the point where they might be tolerable. Then when you
have a major infestation, the chemicals are more effective because they
bugs aren't used to them.

That's the basic idea behind IPM. So if home growers feel compelled to use pesticides,
that's the way to go.

I'm trying to figure out how this principle
relates to apple production in the Upper Midwest.

various resources:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie...G=Search&meta=

ID-93: Midwest Tree Fruit Pest Management Handbook
.... Integrated pest management (IPM) disease management guidelines for organic apple
production in Ohio. ... Integrated pest management for apples and pears. ...
www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/id/id93/app.htm

http://axp.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selec...st.apples.html
http://axp.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PDF/PMG/index.html

Happy growing,
EV