In article
, Bill
wrote:

There is a lot of mis-information in this thread, so I created an
altered header.


Sevin is a certified Organic pesticide. It can be applied up to 7
days pre harvest. It is easily washed from fruit.

Here's a list of other certified organic pesticides.


http://scarab.msu.montana.edu/HpIPMS...tle-Potato.htm

Here are the application guides from New York


http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles...azine/carbaryl
/carbaryl_2eeasia_902.html

Changed the header again.

Yeah, I liked that bit about everyone else being so ignorant that the
"correct" reply requried a separate header -- followed by stuff straight
from the vendors' "toxins are good!" literature.

An organic gardener will never use Carbaryl no matter the brand name. I'm
willing to stay open minded about its dangers or safety -- the evidence is
not in its favor but all things are relative. The Tercyl brand (active
ingredient Carbaryl) it is classified a class 1 toxin, and in Sevin, with
less active ingredient, it is a class 2 toxin; and it becomes a Class 3
toxin for some other brands which have barely any active ingredient at
all. It's toxic in every case with many high-dosage problems and fewer
(but still serious) low exposure risks.

But whether or not the "last word" on the topic ever comes available, the
main thing is that putting "organic" on a toxin doesn't mean organic
gardeners would use it, no more than they'd slather aresenic on
everything, which'd be perfectly "organic" to do. Sevin will kill
beneficial insects, destroy the natural balance, and insure the return of
harmful insects while the beneficial will be slower to recover.

Carbaryl might LEGALLY be used in organic produce fields but those sort of
regulations are never about the best thing for the environment -- they're
about how much you can get away with in a one-species commercial crop to
maximize harvests and still sell the product at the higher price as
organic. Organic gardening is about achieving a healthful balance that
does away with even needing toxins, such as can't seriously be achieved in
a one-species crop but certainly can be achieved in a balanced
multi-species garden for which nature becomes an aid and not a hindrance.

The ACTUAL organic method of treating Japanese beetles for a specific
example is to increase the entomopathogenic nematode and milky spore
population in the soil, following label instructions very narrowly as the
desireable microorganisms may not take hold if applied to soil willynilly
under less than favorable conditions. These require very specific season
and weather conditions to take hold, but once they do, the nematodes will
take care of the grubs of a great many harmful species, and the milkly
spoor will be a permanent fix that gets the Japanese beetle grubs
specifically (it effects no other species at all). Japanese beetles will
never recur, as they will when using pesticides like carbaryl which merely
start the endless cycle of pesticide dependence.

The beneficial microorganism route is unbeatable, but it's not instant,
and in the meantime, while waiting two years for milky spore to take care
of Japanese beetles completely, the subsidiary organic methods begin with
hand-removal when the insects are active on plants (they're great to feed
a pet lizard or pixi frog or laying hens or ciclids such as an oscar).
Planting something they love to distraction, like a Rose of Sharon or a
dwarf crabapple in a very warm/sunny spot, centralizes the
beetle-plucking. Further assistance can be from the parastic wasps Tiphia
vernalis or T. popilliavora which get the beetle eggs, available from a
number of companies and which some neighborhoods join forces to obtain for
an entire block.

Traps can also be placed about for the adult beetles, which some field
studies show take care of as many as three-fourths of the adult beetles in
June and August, and work best at garden peripheries away from plants as
they effectively draw the beetles out of the garden (whereas placed IN the
garden the traps may draw adults from your neighbor's yard and a third or
a fourth of those will get side-tracked by cool plants; also there'll be
so many beetles in the traps that they'll stink of decomposing insects).

In the main, the microorganism route, with some hand-plucking until it
takes hold, is all a garden demands to stay fully organic. And the best
part is that works way better than carbaryl or any other toxin one might
otherwise select.

-paghat the ratgirl

http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC2756.htm

Poison is poison. Recognition of the web of life vs. being apart or
separated.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...tool=EntrezSys
tem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVD ocSum

Bill
--
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http://www.paghat.com
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http://www.weirdwildrealm.com