On 10 Mar 2006 07:22:47 -0800, "James"
wrote:

It might not have helped in floods but it sure did in droughts,

Yes, it was that potent chemical H2O that finally ended the Dust
Bowl.


disease
and insect pests.

Which one? Please, give me a specific disease or insect pest that
you believe can't be controlled except through manufactured
chemicals. I can't effectively debate vague, hand-wavy stuff
like "disease and insect pests". Some are very controllable by
husbandry practices or organic methods; some are more difficult.

One that I've had personal experience with was spit! thrips and
their Weapon of Mass Destruction, Tomato Spotted Wilt virus. It
hit this part of the country hard a few years ago, and as anyone
who has tried to control spit! thrips can tell you, it's almost
impossible to eradicate them. Western Flower spit! thrips are
already highly resistant to many currently registered pesticides,
and they have a very short life cycle.

So, universities and commercial agricultural companies teamed up
and developed several strains of tomatoes that are resistant to
TSWv.


No amount of organic farming could limit locust lost

Poor little lost locust! Maybe it would solve the problem if we
equipped them with little GPS devices and gave them tiny maps.

like a little bit
of poison.

Actually, the FAO has been testing biopesticides spray like a
natural fungus called Metarhizium. It takes several weeks to kill
the locusts, and they spread it to other locusts before they die.
They're also interested in trying IGRs, because they feel the
amount of chemicals it takes to control a plague is dangerous to
the people who live in the sprayed areas.

Chemical spraying also hasn't stopped the plagues, it just
manages to shorten the duration.

I would rather eat a little poison and live instead of
dying of starvation.

It's not an either or situation. You keep trying to polarize the
debate, when more than one person, myself included, has said that
there are times when using chemicals is either unavoidable or
preferable to the alternatives.

Personally I would rather not die of starvation or a cancer
caused by pesticide exposure, but that's just me.

Most of the agronomists I know recommend integrated pest
management systems when possible. Your local extension office can
give you more information on the subject, but the definition is:

"Integrated Pest Management is the coordinated use of pest and
environmental information along with available pest control
methods, including cultural, biological, genetic and chemical
methods, to prevent unacceptable levels of pest damage by the
most economical means, and with the least possible hazard to
people, property, and the environment".


You need to embrace the power of "and".


Farmers were able to use a little bit of chemical fertilizer and
produce more than using a train load of manure.

And exactly where did you get your information? C'mon, put up or
shut up, I'm calling you on your bullshit.


The truth is that it varies by crop, and that a gardener or
farmer has to evaluate for themselves which system or combination
of applications will best fit their crops and philosophy


I'm old enough to have
seen train loads of manure.

I saw one last fall. Manure is big business these days.

*dreamy look* I love manure. You know, the best Valentine's Day
present I ever got was a load of mushroom compost.

Way, way better than the severed sexual organs of hormone primed
and pesticide laced plants.

It certainly takes a lot less time to
spread chemical fertilizer than manure.

Now you're comparing apples and oranges. The seasons and methods
of applying the two are different.


Chemicals against diseases allowed crops to live instead of dying
before you even get started.

That's a useless statement. I don't use commercial chemicals, and
my plants grown just fine. Same with the organic farmers at the
Farmer's Market this morning.



I'm not saying there are no downside to chemicals but I'm no _Silent
Spring_ fanatic.

Gosh, no one here would have ever guessed that.

It's a question of the whole picture. DDT might have
lowered the bald eagle population

It was a little more complicated than that, but it serves your
rhetorical purposes to diminish the problems caused by pesticide
residues in the environment. It doesn't strengthen your case, it
makes it weaker.

but without have using it last
century you might have been killed by some disease carrying insect.

Hogwash.

Insect resistance to DDT started less than 10 years after it hit
the market. It was the eradication of malaria in the south that
prevented my potential death*. There are still mosquitoes
capable of carrying malaria buzzing around here.


You got to ask if we would be worrying about West Nile, Killer Bees,
Rocky Mountain Spoted Fever, etc. if we were still using DDT.

No, I don't "got" to ask, because I know we would. What is so
difficult about the concept of developing resistance that you
can't grasp it? And, how, exactly, would DDT use have prevented
Killer bees? Please, lay out a detailed plan of action that would
have prevented the introduction of killer bees, and wouldn't have
wiped out honey bees.

There are more effective and less dangerous products on the
market that might not have ever been developed if we had depended
solely on DDT. As a dog and cat owner, may I say hooray for
Frontline? And may I say how worried I am over reports of flea
resistance last summer? I don't ever want to have to go back to
that endless cycle of spraying poison on the yard and fogging the
house.


Of course you can point out all the things chemicals cannot do but
what's the point?

The point is that there are alternatives to chemicals, and using
them is both cost effective and environmentally friendly. I will
repeat myself and say what I've been saying; and that is that
there are situations where commercially produced chemicals are a
better choice. I'm not anti-commercial chemical, and I have given
examples where I used chemical; but your dogmatic insistence that
organic gardening and farming methods are inherently inferior to
using commercial chemicals is just wrong.


Fact is chemicals work. Also calling people who
disagree with you misinformed tends to make you sound more nutty.

Wow. The irony is staggering.

I'm not calling people misinformed. I'm calling you misinformed.
It was the kindest descriptor I could come up with.


It's only recently that people can afford organic produce and $4
coffee. Just the fact that organic produce costs way more than
non-organic proves chemicals work. These should be no organic premium
if it was such a good system.

sigh

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make him think.


Penelope, not gonna present an economics lesson, too.

*for which, I'm sure, you're crushingly disappointed.



--
You have proven yourself to be the most malicious,
classless person that I've encountered in years.
- "pointed"