"sherwindu" wrote in message
...
I have noticed several things in paghat's replies on this topic.

For one, she talks about her experiences with Elm Trees and Roses. Does
she
grow apples or plums? She quotes a lot about this study and that, but
what direct
experience does she have herself. For every reference she quotes about
organic
methods, I can find an equal number of those advocating spraying with
chemicals.

Is it really worth it? Would you drink it? Would you put it in baby food?
You are and we are...........

Pesticides in Produce
http://www.foodnews.org/reportcard.php

"Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person
to nearly 20 pesticides per day."

"Peaches and raspberries had the most pesticides detected on a single sample
with nine pesticides on a single sample, followed by strawberries and
apples, where eight pesticides were found on a single sample."

"Peaches had the most pesticides overall with some combination of up to 45
pesticides found on the samples tested, followed by raspberries with 39
pesticides and apples and strawberries, both with 36."

12 Most Contaminated
Buy These Organic

.. Apples
.. Bell Peppers
.. Celery
.. Cherries
.. Imported Grapes
.. Nectarines
.. Peaches
.. Pears
.. Potatoes
.. Red Raspberries
.. Spinach
.. Strawberries

snip

sherwindu wrote:
I have noticed several things in paghat's replies on this topic.

For one, she talks about her experiences with Elm Trees and Roses.
Does she grow apples or plums? She quotes a lot about this study
and that, but what direct experience does she have herself. For
every reference she quotes about organic methods, I can find an
equal number of those advocating spraying with chemicals.

I spray and I use organic methods. It just depends on what the
problem is. I lost a tree to borers. Next time I find them I'll
use industrial grade insecticide. But getting rid of ants just
takes habenero pepper.

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:15:57 -0700,
(paghat) wrote:

In article , John Bachman
wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:08:47 -0700,
(paghat) wrote:

In article , "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"John Bachman" wrote in message
...


This is all reasonable advice, but realize this:

You're giving it to someone who is completely in the dark, and not just
with
regard to gardening. So, it's important to point out garden
chemicals have
not been and can never be correctly tested for safety. I'm sure you're
aware
of that.


Nonsense. If the material is used in strict compliance to the
instructions on the label (and it should not be used in any other way)
safety is assured. Those instructions include dosages, personal
protective equipment requirements and minimum re-entry intervals.

Nonsense.

snipped the pharmetulogical analagy

It is hard to escape old patterns of thought. John really believes apple
maggot MUST be treated with synthetic pesticides because nothing else
works -- it's a claim so many have made so often that just like sasquatch
sightings it MUST be true. If he is shown the conclusive studies from
Cornell & elsewhere that prove this common lore is false, he'll just come
up with yet another pest he believes cannot be controlled except by the
same harshest most harmful methods he is predisposed to believe in. He
strongly believes in the magical incantation "safe if used as directed"
but even he adds so many provisos he clearly knows it's one hell of a big
"if."
Please cite anything I have written about apple maggot. You will fail
as I have never written on that subject.


John has for many years in this group advocated "the right chemical for
the right job" -- he's a true believer in the trustworthiness of chemical
industry sales pitches. If there's a better organic method, he's not
incapable of realizing it, but he's going to fall behind the learning
curve. I try always to remember this is the same guy who praised cowshit
for "that farmy smell" -- gotta love a guy like that (as for me, I very
swiftly learned never to stop for a hitchhiker in bib overalls near a
dairy, as the car will smell like cowshit for the rest of the day).

Please cite just one time that I have promoted "the right chemical for
the right job." Also, when I said anything about cowshit. You will
fail for I have never done either.

Some may praise paghat but she is is off the mark this time and has
demeaned me with false accusations. Bad paghat!

John


snip
If you never made the "farmy smell" post there must be two John Bachmans.
Ever since you or your evil twin posted about the glories of the farmy
smell of cow manure, Granny Artemis & I have incorporated the phrase
"ahhh, that lovely farmy smell!" as our recurring synonym for "cowshit"
every time we drive by a dairy. I just this minute did a google-groups
search on the phrase "farmy smell" to find out if I'd been miscrediting
that lovely discription of cowshit to the wrong fellow. I only got one
hit, & it certainly appears to be you saying how much you enjoy the "farmy
smell" of cow manu
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.gardens.edible/msg/813bab6a3eab3f95?dmode=source&hl=en
Ahh, the memory power of google exceeds my own. It seems that a reply
I made to a survey posted by a would-be book writer in 2000 caught
pighat's attention. Although the term "cowshit" was not used, cow
manure was, and I confessed a preference to the "farmy smell" of cow
vs other varieties.

I stand corrected and apologize to pighat for accusing her of making
stuff up.

I think I remember pretty correctly your recurring advocacies of the right
chemical properly used, though that certainly was not an exact quote as
"farmy smell" was. Maybe you just don't know how your advocacy sounds
sometimes. Very much in keeping with your post in this thread asserting
that following label instructions renders all pesticides totally safe --
that's just untrue. The reality is that "used as directed," pesticides &
herbicides have done great harm to watersheds & lakes & locally to Hood
Canal, it took no off-label use to do great harm. Used strictly as
directed, these chemicals have accumulative effects which label
instructions don't take into consideration, combining effects when other
chemicals are added into the garden mix according to THEIR directions, all
of which degrades or combines into still other chemicals, many
carcinogenic, none of those assessed before those misleading instructions
are concocted.

Indeed the labeling is vastly more for legal rather than safety concerns.

While the label provides legal protection to the manufacturer if the
user misapplies the product, that is not a bad thing. The labels also
meet the requirements of the EPA for approval for use.

However, the labels also provide detailed instructions for the use of
the product in areas that I mentioned above and also with regard to
application in proximity to waterways, public water supplies and
private wells.

I believe that if the restrictions are followed, the product can be
used safely.



Really I was responding to your untrue statement that "another pest" (I
assumed you meant in addition to the apple maggot that had just been
discussed in the thread) that cannot be controlled organically was plum
curculio. You were dead wrong but i weary sometimes of correcting that
sort of misinformation & so posted about your love of cowshit instead,
thinking myself amusing rather than bad for it.

Both those orchard pests are now pretty easily controlled organically.
That plum curulio was once believed to have no effective organic control
was disproven a good five years ago, when the final barriers hampering
organic orchards in the Northeast fell away (Pacific Nrthwest organic
orcharders didn't want the sudden competition & were sorry the
Northeasterners wised up).

Surround is approved as an organic pesticide. The effective ingredient of
Surround is natural clay kaolin (hard to call it "active" ingredient since
it is inert). Field trials overseen by Drs. Michael Glenn & Gary Puterka
of the USDA found that orchards that had been experiencing 20 to 30
percent damage from plum curculio dropped to .5 to 1% damage with
application of Surround. (It could well be that with broader organic
principles in place, even Surround would not be necessary, but commercial
orchards are by their nature not mixed-species environments so it's hard
to achieve the prophelactic balance that is easier in a more complex
community of gardened plants).

Surround does indeed provide effective control of plum curculio when
applied according to it's label. That requires reapplication after
every significant rain as Surround washes off easily and complete
coverage is essential.

It also necessary to use a large amount of surround to get effective
coverage 0.5#/gallon is recommended. That is a lot of material to
apply after every rain.

Will some homeowners use Surround effectively? Yes, some will.

I will stick with Imidan at the rate of 1#/50 gallons applied every 10
- 14 days and follow all of the other label instructions. Then I will
eat my perfect fruits with full confidence that it is safe to do so.

John

"John Bachman" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:15:57 -0700,
(paghat) wrote:

snip
I think I remember pretty correctly your recurring advocacies of the
right
chemical properly used, though that certainly was not an exact quote as
"farmy smell" was. Maybe you just don't know how your advocacy sounds
sometimes. Very much in keeping with your post in this thread asserting
that following label instructions renders all pesticides totally safe --
that's just untrue. The reality is that "used as directed," pesticides &
herbicides have done great harm to watersheds & lakes & locally to Hood
Canal, it took no off-label use to do great harm. Used strictly as
directed, these chemicals have accumulative effects which label
instructions don't take into consideration, combining effects when other
chemicals are added into the garden mix according to THEIR directions,
all
of which degrades or combines into still other chemicals, many
carcinogenic, none of those assessed before those misleading
instructions
are concocted.

Indeed the labeling is vastly more for legal rather than safety concerns.

While the label provides legal protection to the manufacturer if the
user misapplies the product, that is not a bad thing. The labels also
meet the requirements of the EPA for approval for use.

Not very reassuring, considering the following:

Basic Testing to Identify Chemical Hazards
http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-pr...d=732%2d11%2d6

Chemical: IMIDAN

"This chemical was not included in EPA's survey of basic testing data."

However, the labels also provide detailed instructions for the use of
the product in areas that I mentioned above and also with regard to
application in proximity to waterways, public water supplies and
private wells.

I believe that if the restrictions are followed, the product can be
used safely.

snip

I will stick with Imidan at the rate of 1#/50 gallons applied every 10
- 14 days and follow all of the other label instructions. Then I will
eat my perfect fruits with full confidence that it is safe to do so.

WSU Pesticide Information Center
http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/~cdaniels.../Imidan70W.htm
Fact Sheet for Imidan

"Gowan, the registrant for Imidan, does not have the required toxicity data
to support a general use category in a residential setting for Imidan. EPA
has allowed a residential use for this SLN under the conditions that it be
labeled a restricted use product."

So, neither the EPA nor the manufacturer have complete data.

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 07:59:24 -0500, "cat daddy"
wrote:


"John Bachman" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:15:57 -0700,
(paghat) wrote:

snip
I think I remember pretty correctly your recurring advocacies of the
right
chemical properly used, though that certainly was not an exact quote as
"farmy smell" was. Maybe you just don't know how your advocacy sounds
sometimes. Very much in keeping with your post in this thread asserting
that following label instructions renders all pesticides totally safe --
that's just untrue. The reality is that "used as directed," pesticides &
herbicides have done great harm to watersheds & lakes & locally to Hood
Canal, it took no off-label use to do great harm. Used strictly as
directed, these chemicals have accumulative effects which label
instructions don't take into consideration, combining effects when other
chemicals are added into the garden mix according to THEIR directions,
all
of which degrades or combines into still other chemicals, many
carcinogenic, none of those assessed before those misleading
instructions
are concocted.

Indeed the labeling is vastly more for legal rather than safety concerns.

While the label provides legal protection to the manufacturer if the
user misapplies the product, that is not a bad thing. The labels also
meet the requirements of the EPA for approval for use.

Not very reassuring, considering the following:

Basic Testing to Identify Chemical Hazards
http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-pr...d=732%2d11%2d6

Chemical: IMIDAN

"This chemical was not included in EPA's survey of basic testing data."

However, the labels also provide detailed instructions for the use of
the product in areas that I mentioned above and also with regard to
application in proximity to waterways, public water supplies and
private wells.

I believe that if the restrictions are followed, the product can be
used safely.

snip

I will stick with Imidan at the rate of 1#/50 gallons applied every 10
- 14 days and follow all of the other label instructions. Then I will
eat my perfect fruits with full confidence that it is safe to do so.

WSU Pesticide Information Center
http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/~cdaniels.../Imidan70W.htm
Fact Sheet for Imidan

"Gowan, the registrant for Imidan, does not have the required toxicity data
to support a general use category in a residential setting for Imidan. EPA
has allowed a residential use for this SLN under the conditions that it be
labeled a restricted use product."

So, neither the EPA nor the manufacturer have complete data.


Not quite correct. There is not enough data to justify "a general use
category in a residential setting." I stated in one of the earlier
postings that Imidan is a restricted use insecticide and that is one,
but only one, of the reasons I obtained my pesticide applicator's
license.

As I stated earlier, a control for plum curculio used to be in general
fruit tree insecticides and fungicides that are available to
unlicensed applicators. However that control was removed from those
products two years ago.

This leaves the homeowner unprotected except, as paghat pointed out,
for products like Surround-WP.

I do not want to deal with the Surround baggage and am licensed so I
will stick with Imidan as an effective, easy to use and safe control
for plum curculio.

John

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

I have noticed several things in paghat's replies on this topic.

For one, she talks about her experiences with Elm Trees and Roses. Does she
grow apples or plums? She quotes a lot about this study and that, but
what direct
experience does she have herself.

I tend to cherries & plums in my own garden, cherries & apples on an
estate where I'm the head gardener, not to mention blueberries,
serviceberries, loganberries, & the like. But big deal. I was also an
itinerant farmworker as a child travelling with carnies, Indians, &
Mexicans (some of whom today own the very Walla Walla orchards they once
worked in). So one way or another I've been in orchards since age three or
four. But who grew & picked apples longest is hardly the basis for the
science unless it all took place in horticultural experimental stations
orchestrated for the specific purpose of comparing cultivars & methods.

Fact is, a controlled study means LOTS more than one individual's
experience. Your experience being one of taking orders from the chemical
companies makes you wildly UN-knowledgeable, & whether you did things
wrong for one year or fifty years, your horror of horticultural science
couldn't have assisted you in gaining knowledge.

That you believe your personal experience relying on toxins could ever
successfully contradict controlled field studies for the USDA & at
experimental horticultural stations such as at Cornell is one big clue you
don't know squat, since successful commercial growers do monitor the
literature to incorporate modern improvements, to correct mistakes, to
improve harvests, & to improve the profitability of each harvest. If they
were like you they'd still be praising DDT incapable of advancing.

For every reference she quotes about organic
methods, I can find an equal number of those advocating spraying with
chemicals.

Yet you don't bother to cite any, doubtless because they'd be years
outdated or generated by the companies selling the products & quite
naturally recommending everyone use their products. Someone smarter than
you certainly could cite good studies that show the effectiveness of all
sorts of chemicals -- that wouldn't change the fact that you posted
extreme falsehoods (either from ignorance or lying, I assume the former &
that you are not intentionally this dishonest) & it remains that your
insisting there is no other way (whether for apple maggots or for
funguses) was provably incorrect, plane & simple.

Paghat also fails to make a distinction between commercial orchards and
home orchards.

I addressed quite carefully in the plum curculio post about the problems
backyard fruit gardeners cause commercial organic growers by not doing as
good a job of it as the professionals.

The more sophisticated
of these orchards will put out traps to determine what type of insect is
attacking, and
when best to treat for it. A home orchardist can be more selective and
can do a better
job of monitoring pest damage.

If only; that's unfortunately untrue, at least in practice. The average
gardener is neither organic nor particularly knowledgeable. Back-yard
fruit trees are frequently neglected, maltreated, & infested. Backyard
fruit trees are more apt to be slathered with chemicals that in the long
run perpetuate rather than reduce problems. They are the leading threat to
organic growers. It is up to the commercial growers to raise the awareness
of amateur growers who tend to lack the professional organic grower's
knowledge & skill at maintaining healthy trees. If you knew anything at
all about what you're blowharding about, you'd've known that.

But don't make the mistake of assuming professional orchardists are big
agribusiness outfits. Unlike for wheat or corn, orchards are still
generally small enterprises, & maximizing the value of each individual
apple matters a lot to a smaller company.

Although I concentrated on insects, fungus problems [additional
pretences clipped]

Yep, that's the way to ignore the facts & promote toxins no matter what.
If you make a statement that is easily shown to be untrue, just skip ahead
with a brand new "yeah but" & toss out something else that doesn't
substantiate your point either.

You keep admitting you have all these horrible diseases in your very few
trees. Since organic gardeners do not have all these problems, perhaps you
should re-evaluate your misunderstanding of cause & effect.

Unfortunately, the new varieties of apples that are disease
resistant, although improving, have not equaled the taste and flavor of
other apples.

Since some of the strongest disease-resistant apples were released between
the 1920s & 1970s, they are themselves heirlooms by now, & have stood the
test of time for public tastes. Macoun is still one of the best apples for
growers in areas afflicted with fireblight, & it was released in 1923.
Spartan is one of the most disease-resistant apples & in the top ten of
public & grower popularity, developed by one of those Experimental
Stations you disapprove of -- in 1936. I seriously doubt you could tell
the difference blindfolded between a an heirloom McIntosh & a radically
disease resistant Liberty, since they do taste awfully similar; but it
hardly matters if you could or couldn't because what are grown today as
McIntoshes are actually about thirty different strains some disease
resistant others not.

Certainly any pretense on your part that chemical-slathered apples taste
better is the height of nonsensical propogandizing without a lick of sense
involved -- even apart from your wildly mistaken notion that only the
newest cultivars are disease resistant. Fact is, some of the recent
Purdue-Rutgers cultivars (1945 to present) are the best-tasting apples
ever developed, having been developed over a long period for size, color,
flavor, & disease-resistance. But if someone had a romantic desire for an
old variety, Macoun & Spartan are disease resistant too, as are some of
the modern McIntoshes which are not actually the same apples our
great-grandparents grew. Mcintoshes for backyard gardeners tend to be
grafted onto semi-dwarf hardy roots very different from what were grown on
small farms fifty years ago.

And if anyone REALLY wants a true heirloom apple, guess who grows them --
small specialized organic growers, both because such specialists truly
love the romance of the apple so are hierloom collectors, & because so
many heirloom apples are vigorous strains that respond splendidly to
organic techniques. One reason some of these heirlooms have been around so
long is BECAUSE they are disease resistant, & growers who have bad luck
it's because they killed off the soil microorganisms & beneficial insects
with chemicals & their orchard or garden is overall stressed & unhealthy
-- NOT because they grow an old variety that'll be all diseased unless its
got five or six different poisons dumped all over it. So you're just
blowing toxic smoke.

Though of course it's partly a matter of taste so anyone can say anything
where flavor is concerned -- & the public taste isn't always the smartest.
So far as public acceptance is concerned, the Red Delicious is the perfect
apple, but that has got to be based on physical appearance; by my
taste-buds it's the nastiest tasting of the top ten apples, yet it
persistantly ranks #1 with the public because it's by far the prettiest &
it will even stand perfectly upright on the table. I'm personally not fond
of Granny Smith tartness -- but it's a top-ten apple with the public, & an
heirloom, & anyone who loves Granny Smiths will love the tartest of the
newest disease-resistant cultivars, some of which share with Granny Smith
a bit of crab-apple in their breeding. The majority of the newest
varieties have been targetted for Northeast growers who were behind the
curve in learning how to grow apples properly because they had fiercer
disease problems to overcome -- those growers tended to prefer McIntoshes
so resistant varieties arose that look & taste like McIntoshes, & tend to
have "Mac" incorporated in their registered names, but being sold as new
strains of McIntosh are just sold to the public as regular McIntoshes but
no longer prone to scabs & holes.

If anything, it is the chemical-dependent growers who are least concerned
with flavor. You yourself admit the chemical-dependent are looking for
shortcuts, not the best methods. They spray for fear the skin of the apple
will become flawed, looks counting for more than flavor (forgetting that
organic apples now rank #1 with the juice outfits too & even flawed apples
are more valuable without toxins). The chemical-dependent pick early for
easier shipment, so no one will ever know what they might have tasted like
ripe. How long an apple can be stored at cool temperatures is far more
important to shortcut-orchardists than is the flavor -- if it still LOOKS
good shipped to market three months after it is picked, who cares if it
tastes grainy & disgusting -- the grower who didn't care to protect the
public from toxins certainly isn't going to make sure it tastes perfect.

Firmness for shipping & color for eye-appeal & storability for later sale
& large size are all issues that effect the development of apple cultivars
for traits other than flavor. Disease resistance has never been one of the
negative factors for flavor. The horticultural stations developing these
strains, however, have no built-in commercial reason to be compromising on
flavor; they are not rushing so or not sending inferior strains to market.
Often the only "change" in a new cultivar is it blooms later & so misses
all the peak moments for disease susceptibility -- late-blooming varieties
old or new just naturally get exposed to fewer pests, funguses, &
pathogens, & the late-blooming varieties have been especially promoted
since 1999 by the Mid West Apple Improvement Association.

Fact is, some of the recent super-resistant Purdue-Rutgers cultivars are
the best-tasting apples available, so new or old varieties,
disease-resistance & flavor go hand in hand. Some of the older tried &
true varieties are just about as disease-resistant as the Rutgers
varieties because Heirloom doesn't mean disease-ridden, jus as new
cultivar doesn't mean bad flavor. And since it IS a matter of taste, some
of the heirlooms are crappy tasting by my estimation, having been
developed for physical appearance more than for flavor.

If Paghat can grow fruit without spraying, she is certainly a most
fortunate person.

More relevantly, since organic orchards are the strongest & the only
expanding area of temperate fruit production today, the public is
certainly most fortunate.

It sometimes looks like part of your problem, Sherwin, is that you know
nothing about fruit-growing post-1995, that you somehow got set in your
ways during one of the worst periods of American Agricultural chemical
dependency & can't evolve. You seek magic bullets which provide harmful
illusory & temporary fixes, & have no patience to do it right & achieve a
healthy balance. Many of the most startling strides forward in improved
agricultural techniques are less than ten years old, & that's especially
true for apples that have undergone a veritable revolution just in the
last decade.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

I have religiously cleaned all fruit from my backyard. I tried all
these traps,
and still the insects have come. There are no other fruit trees in my
neighborhood
to account for this infestation. The traps help somewhat, but don't do
a complete job.

But you're dead wrong in your belief that a few trees in the backyard are
less apt to respond to organic principles. You're dead wrong that the body
of knowledge developed at experimental horticultural stations & put into
practice by organic growers have no application to the backyard orchard.
Since you refuse to adhere to any method that does not permit you to see
everything die right before your eyes in a matter of seconds, you'll never
have a clue how easy organic gardening can be. It's not something you try
for a month on one tree then discard -- you have a toxified diseased
property & to establish any holistic semblance of an organic balance would
require more than you quickly discarding all organic techniques.

I don't know why paghat keeps talking about commercial orchards. We are
home gardeners,
who grow things in our backyards, on a much smaller scale. Insect
damage is more
distributed in a large commercial orchard, so if a small percentage of
the trees get hit,
there are many others to take up the slack. That is not the case of a
home orchard,
where you have only a handful of trees, usually one tree per variety.
If one of those
trees gets hit, you have lost that variety of fruit for the season.

That's pretty irrational stuff you've trundled out there. Organic gardens
are healthier gardens; they are not more prone to insect attack, they are
less prone. You have to keep using toxins because dependence breeds
dependence, not because there is no better way.

Even more intriguingly however, you previously you argued the opposite:

A commercial orchard cannot closely monitor the effects of hundreds of
trees, and therefore takes a 'blanket' approach to control.

So which irrational thought are you promoting? Only big orchards can be
organic because they can afford more diseases, while back yards can't be
organic because that one tree will surely be dieased? Or only back yard
growers can be organic because they can focus on each plant, but big
orchards MUST take a blanket approach with toxins?

You are shifting the argument back & forth so that you can continue to
believe toxins are next to godliness, & you're not sounding rational.

In reality QUALIFIED commercial orchards easily monitor their trees just
as will any skillful backyard orchardist. But lazy second-rate growers &
backyard amateurs might not bother, & thus frequently end up with a toxic
pig-apple harvest.

But yes, from the chemical-dependent grower's point of view, shortcuts are
the only important thing, even if the shortcuts are illusory & based on
ignorance. If you create an unhealthy environment & try to fix it with
poisons instead of with improved horticultural techniques, obviously you
just set yourself up for a cycle of seasonal failures -- & every time you
MUST use toxins to keep things from going away, that's evidence of failure
which begets failure. If it SEEMS to be a shortcut, it is indeed apt to
count for much more than quality, valuation, blance, health, & safety.

This is why commercial organic growers are on the cutting edge of today's
orchard industry & are not bankrupting at the same staggering rate as
chemical-dependent growers. Organic apples have an expanding marketplace;
the chemical-dependent have whiners & complainers wishing George Bush
would bail them out the graves they dug for themselves. It's also why
promoters of chemical swill have to pretend very clear findings from the
same horticultural stations & USDA can't possibly be right if a hand-out
from Ortho or Monsanto says otherwise.

You should also mention that these traps are very expensive, especially
the pheromones. I have
not noticed any significant retardation of insect attacks using them, so
I will not rely
solely on their effectiveness.

No pheramones are used to trap apple maggots, so what in the world are you
doing? Everything incorrectly, obviously.

If you can afford jugs of gawdawful expensive chemicals, you can afford $3
sticky traps, as that's the cheapest on the market; really pretty ones
made as much for human delight rather than just to attract pests can cost
ten or twelve dollars each. And sure, you COULD pay $20 or even more if
you'd rather have a really decorative one with a nice green leaf sticking
out of the top -- even those are pretty cheap since you can re-used
forever, recharging them with scented sticky-bait, which is cheap.

The traps are not hard to make at home for nothing, even an old christmas
tree ornament will do the trick -- the total cost would be for the baited
glue, which if you get screwed for the price it might cost $7 for enough
of the scented sticky bait to charge three old ornaments from the attic or
thrift store if you were too damned cheap to spring for a manufactured
trap -- the total cost for the year could be less than many of us pay for
coffee in a single day (chai in my case lately). Since the traps work
pretty well even without the scented lure, you could just recharge the
ornament with tanglefoot -- that'll save you on that goshawful expense of
$7 for the baited equivalent.

As for pheramones, you were talking about apple maggot lures. The scented
bait does NOT consist of pheramones. They are food bacteria -- they
attract most of the fruit-targetting flying pests of which apple maggot is
the biggest nuisance, & do it without killing fifteen kinds of beneficial
insects that also protect the trees. Nowadays the lure is built right into
the product's sticky component so it costs nothing extra for its first
year's use. You can buy the baited glue separately to make home-made traps
or revitalize an old ones you say you paid too much for. It's nonsense to
say this is too expensive while you spend a far greater fortune on toxins.


And if your low level of knowledge in these matters really did cause you
to put some sort of costly pheramone in an overpriced decorative trap,
you've nothing to blame but your own ignorance that it didn't work & it
cost too much. And this kind of insanity is how your "personal experience"
taught you organic methods are no good is it? Criminy!

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

In article ,
says...
Why is that my garden does
fabulously & never requires ME to get a respirator, moon suit, & five
kinds of toxins to spray about? God loves me but hates you? I'm lucky,
you're not? Or are we both experiencing the results of our own actions?

Well, take the elm beetle larva. The first few years I thought it'd go
away and I did nothing. The elm leaves were nothing but ribs. Then a
systemic was applied. It worked, but I thought it was overkill. The
next year I did nothing again, and again I had ribs for leaves. Since
then I've watched for the first ones to appear - they overwinter in the
ground (maybe as eggs) and emerge along about now - I'd better remember
to check.

So I waited for mother nature to solve the problem - didn't work. Sevin
does. That's good enough for me.

BTW, I use absolutely no chemicals on my vegetable garden other than
Miracle Grow. In that case the benefits aren't worth the risk.

We can have this argument forever. I'll never convince you that
different situations require different solutions (pun intended) and
you'll never convince me that chemicals are the work of the devil. So
that's the end of it for me.

I never should have made the original post - I knew what the response
would be.

--
BNSF = Build Now, Seep Forever

In article ,
says...
In article , lgb
wrote:


For example, Sevin, which is quite toxic, is the only thing I've found
that will knock out elm beetle grubs before they deleaf my elm trees. I
wear coveralls and a respirator when I use it, usually once a year.

You posit a worst-case scenario of thrips stripping
elms, yet you can't kill elm thrips without also killing a whole array of
beneficial insects thus making the environment MORE inviting to thrips for
the next cycle.

I say beetles, you say thrips - IOW, you didn't read my post very
well before your knee jerk response. Figures.

--
BNSF = Build Now, Seep Forever

In article , lgb
wrote:

In article ,
says...
In article , lgb
wrote:


For example, Sevin, which is quite toxic, is the only thing I've found
that will knock out elm beetle grubs before they deleaf my elm trees. I
wear coveralls and a respirator when I use it, usually once a year.

You posit a worst-case scenario of thrips stripping
elms, yet you can't kill elm thrips without also killing a whole array of
beneficial insects thus making the environment MORE inviting to thrips for
the next cycle.

I say beetles, you say thrips - IOW, you didn't read my post very
well before your knee jerk response. Figures.

Eh, not that you even care. The elm leaf beetle is controlled by Bacillus
thuringiensis ssp tenebrionis, beneficial insects, & even with seaweed
spray. You elect instead a method that kills the natural controlling
agents, thus harming the entire localized ecosystem, in the long run
worsening the condition you misguidedly assaulted, because harmful pests
re-establish theiur populations MUCH faster than do predatory insects
which will only return after their prey re-establishes itself. So its no
wonder you have these problems. Whether for thrips or beetles, the reality
is the same: chemical dependency breeds chemical dependency -- in stressed
& unhealthy gardens.

The bacillus can permanently retard beetle populations keeping their
populations indefinitely in decline so that the need to fight them becomes
lessoned year by year, & the temptation to use toxins eventually reduced
to none.

It can take three years to stop the problem entirely then it may never
need to be done again. The impatient might in the meantime want to use
organic approved pyrethrum & isopropyl alcohol, or a fish emulsion or
seaweed spray or horticultural oil for added boost without killing off all
the beneficial insect population. When you insist your only choice is a
moon-suit, respirator, & toxins that kill everything in their path, you
only guarantee that the problems you admit to having recur year after year
will continue to recur year after year.

The bacillus HAS to be the subspecies tenebrionis which targets elm
beetles especially well; the caterpilar Bt doesn't do it. Btt kills elm
beetles without harming the natural predetors of elm beetles. For so long
as you insist in YOUR kneejerk way that your only option is to use methods
that simultaneously kill the beneficial insect population, the beetles
win.

But you've made it clear you couldn't care less.

-paggers
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

paghat wrote:

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

I have noticed several things in paghat's replies on this topic.

For one, she talks about her experiences with Elm Trees and Roses. Does she
grow apples or plums? She quotes a lot about this study and that, but
what direct
experience does she have herself.

I tend to cherries & plums in my own garden, cherries & apples on an
estate where I'm the head gardener, not to mention blueberries,
serviceberries, loganberries, & the like. But big deal. I was also an
itinerant farmworker as a child travelling with carnies, Indians, &
Mexicans (some of whom today own the very Walla Walla orchards they once
worked in). So one way or another I've been in orchards since age three or
four. But who grew & picked apples longest is hardly the basis for the
science unless it all took place in horticultural experimental stations
orchestrated for the specific purpose of comparing cultivars & methods.

Fact is, a controlled study means LOTS more than one individual's
experience. Your experience being one of taking orders from the chemical
companies makes you wildly UN-knowledgeable, & whether you did things
wrong for one year or fifty years, your horror of horticultural science
couldn't have assisted you in gaining knowledge.

That you believe your personal experience relying on toxins could ever
successfully contradict controlled field studies for the USDA & at
experimental horticultural stations such as at Cornell is one big clue you
don't know squat, since successful commercial growers do monitor the
literature to incorporate modern improvements, to correct mistakes, to
improve harvests, & to improve the profitability of each harvest. If they
were like you they'd still be praising DDT incapable of advancing.

For every reference she quotes about organic
methods, I can find an equal number of those advocating spraying with
chemicals.

Yet you don't bother to cite any, doubtless because they'd be years
outdated or generated by the companies selling the products & quite
naturally recommending everyone use their products. Someone smarter than
you certainly could cite good studies that show the effectiveness of all
sorts of chemicals -- that wouldn't change the fact that you posted
extreme falsehoods (either from ignorance or lying, I assume the former &
that you are not intentionally this dishonest) & it remains that your
insisting there is no other way (whether for apple maggots or for
funguses) was provably incorrect, plane & simple.

Paghat also fails to make a distinction between commercial orchards and
home orchards.

I addressed quite carefully in the plum curculio post about the problems
backyard fruit gardeners cause commercial organic growers by not doing as
good a job of it as the professionals.

All other things about knowledge being equal, a home gardener can give more
attention to their limited number of trees than a commercial orchard with hundreds
of trees to tend. There are some amateur gardeners are not very knowledgable
about spraying, but I am not including them in this discussion. Most of the people
I know belong to NAFEX and other similar organizations who can hold their own
with the commercial people.



The more sophisticated
of these orchards will put out traps to determine what type of insect is
attacking, and
when best to treat for it. A home orchardist can be more selective and
can do a better
job of monitoring pest damage.

If only; that's unfortunately untrue, at least in practice. The average
gardener is neither organic nor particularly knowledgeable. Back-yard
fruit trees are frequently neglected, maltreated, & infested.

Where do you get your statistics from? What does happen is when a home
owner sells their place and the new owner is either disinterested in maintaining
the fruit trees, or doesn't know where to turn to for help. Again, I am not
including them in this discussion

Backyard
fruit trees are more apt to be slathered with chemicals that in the long
run perpetuate rather than reduce problems. They are the leading threat to
organic growers. It is up to the commercial growers to raise the awareness
of amateur growers who tend to lack the professional organic grower's
knowledge & skill at maintaining healthy trees.

There are many organizations like NAFEX and MIDFEX, where home growers can pick
up all the information they need. The commercial growers could care less.

If you knew anything at
all about what you're blowharding about, you'd've known that.

But don't make the mistake of assuming professional orchardists are big
agribusiness outfits. Unlike for wheat or corn, orchards are still
generally small enterprises, & maximizing the value of each individual
apple matters a lot to a smaller company.

Although I concentrated on insects, fungus problems [additional
pretences clipped]

Yep, that's the way to ignore the facts & promote toxins no matter what.
If you make a statement that is easily shown to be untrue, just skip ahead
with a brand new "yeah but" & toss out something else that doesn't
substantiate your point either.

You keep admitting you have all these horrible diseases in your very few
trees. Since organic gardeners do not have all these problems

I have visited several organic orchards with plenty of spoiled fruit around.

, perhaps you
should re-evaluate your misunderstanding of cause & effect.

Unfortunately, the new varieties of apples that are disease
resistant, although improving, have not equaled the taste and flavor of
other apples.

Since some of the strongest disease-resistant apples were released between
the 1920s & 1970s, they are themselves heirlooms by now, & have stood the
test of time for public tastes. Macoun is still one of the best apples for
growers in areas afflicted with fireblight, & it was released in 1923.
Spartan is one of the most disease-resistant apples & in the top ten of
public & grower popularity, developed by one of those Experimental
Stations you disapprove of -- in 1936. I seriously doubt you could tell
the difference blindfolded between a an heirloom McIntosh & a radically
disease resistant Liberty, since they do taste awfully similar; but it
hardly matters if you could or couldn't because what are grown today as
McIntoshes are actually about thirty different strains some disease
resistant others not.

These apples mentioned have specific resistance to certain problems due
to their natural genetics, but they were not specifically bred to be disease
resistant. Of course, there are no apples I know of that are naturally
insect resistant.



Certainly any pretense on your part that chemical-slathered apples taste
better is the height of nonsensical propogandizing without a lick of sense
involved -- even apart from your wildly mistaken notion that only the
newest cultivars are disease resistant.

You missed the point. The best tasting apples are not disease resistant,
and thus need the protection of spraying.

Fact is, some of the recent
Purdue-Rutgers cultivars (1945 to present) are the best-tasting apples
ever developed, having been developed over a long period for size, color,
flavor, & disease-resistance. But if someone had a romantic desire for an
old variety, Macoun & Spartan are disease resistant too, as are some of
the modern McIntoshes which are not actually the same apples our
great-grandparents grew. Mcintoshes for backyard gardeners tend to be
grafted onto semi-dwarf hardy roots very different from what were grown on
small farms fifty years ago.

And if anyone REALLY wants a true heirloom apple, guess who grows them --
small specialized organic growers, both because such specialists truly
love the romance of the apple so are hierloom collectors, & because so
many heirloom apples are vigorous strains that respond splendidly to
organic techniques.

Nonsense. Hierloom apples are not naturally more adaptable to organic preventative
measures. Organic growers do not have a corner on that market either. The only
disease resistant apple I grow is Williams Pride. It is a rather good tasting apple,
but certainly not the best tasting apple in my backyard. I also picked that apple
because it is an early bearer to complement my late apples.

One reason some of these heirlooms have been around so
long is BECAUSE they are disease resistant

Again, nonsense. Heirlooms are not naturally disease or insect resistant. As you
mentioned some have resistant to particular pests, but not to all.

, & growers who have bad luck
it's because they killed off the soil microorganisms & beneficial insects
with chemicals & their orchard or garden is overall stressed & unhealthy
-- NOT because they grow an old variety that'll be all diseased unless its
got five or six different poisons dumped all over it. So you're just
blowing toxic smoke.

Though of course it's partly a matter of taste so anyone can say anything
where flavor is concerned -- & the public taste isn't always the smartest.

Who cares about the public taste. The reason I grow fruit myself is that
I can select varieties that I can't buy in my supermarket. Ones that don't
have that classic red shinny look, but taste terrific.


So far as public acceptance is concerned, the Red Delicious is the perfect
apple, but that has got to be based on physical appearance; by my
taste-buds it's the nastiest tasting of the top ten apples, yet it
persistantly ranks #1 with the public because it's by far the prettiest &
it will even stand perfectly upright on the table. I'm personally not fond
of Granny Smith tartness -- but it's a top-ten apple with the public, & an
heirloom, & anyone who loves Granny Smiths will love the tartest of the
newest disease-resistant cultivars, some of which share with Granny Smith
a bit of crab-apple in their breeding. The majority of the newest
varieties have been targetted for Northeast growers who were behind the
curve in learning how to grow apples properly because they had fiercer
disease problems to overcome -- those growers tended to prefer McIntoshes
so resistant varieties arose that look & taste like McIntoshes, & tend to
have "Mac" incorporated in their registered names, but being sold as new
strains of McIntosh are just sold to the public as regular McIntoshes but
no longer prone to scabs & holes.

If anything, it is the chemical-dependent growers who are least concerned
with flavor.

Are you talking about commercial growers again? Who cares what they grow.

You yourself admit the chemical-dependent are looking for
shortcuts, not the best methods.

Never said that. Spraying is no shortcut task. It takes a lot of work to do it right.

They spray for fear the skin of the apple
will become flawed,

Nonsense. I don't like worms and rot inside my fruit.

looks counting for more than flavor (forgetting that
organic apples now rank #1 with the juice outfits too & even flawed apples
are more valuable without toxins). The chemical-dependent pick early for
easier shipment, so no one will ever know what they might have tasted like
ripe. How long an apple can be stored at cool temperatures is far more
important to shortcut-orchardists than is the flavor -- if it still LOOKS
good shipped to market three months after it is picked, who cares if it
tastes grainy & disgusting -- the grower who didn't care to protect the
public from toxins certainly isn't going to make sure it tastes perfect.

Again, who cares about the commercial growers.



Firmness for shipping & color for eye-appeal & storability for later sale
& large size are all issues that effect the development of apple cultivars
for traits other than flavor. Disease resistance has never been one of the
negative factors for flavor. The horticultural stations developing these
strains, however, have no built-in commercial reason to be compromising on
flavor; they are not rushing so or not sending inferior strains to market.
Often the only "change" in a new cultivar is it blooms later & so misses
all the peak moments for disease susceptibility -- late-blooming varieties
old or new just naturally get exposed to fewer pests, funguses, &
pathogens, & the late-blooming varieties have been especially promoted
since 1999 by the Mid West Apple Improvement Association.

Fact is, some of the recent super-resistant Purdue-Rutgers cultivars are
the best-tasting apples available, so new or old varieties,
disease-resistance & flavor go hand in hand.

I don't think so. Unfortunately, breeding disease resistance into an apple
does not necessarily breed better flavor, as well. It is all a comprimise.
Maybe someday, they will find cultivars that have both these characteristics,
but for now, these newer apples like Liberty and William's Pride are only
good tasting apples, not great ones. If you can get an apple to taste as
good as a Hudson's Golden Gem, for example, and still be disease resistant,
I'll put in my order immediately.

Some of the older tried &
true varieties are just about as disease-resistant as the Rutgers
varieties because Heirloom doesn't mean disease-ridden, jus as new
cultivar doesn't mean bad flavor. And since it IS a matter of taste, some
of the heirlooms are crappy tasting by my estimation, having been
developed for physical appearance more than for flavor.

Never. Almost by definition, these heirlooms were grown by people
who could care less about appearance. Where are you getting your
information?



If Paghat can grow fruit without spraying, she is certainly a most
fortunate person.

More relevantly, since organic orchards are the strongest & the only
expanding area of temperate fruit production today, the public is
certainly most fortunate.

It sometimes looks like part of your problem, Sherwin, is that you know
nothing about fruit-growing post-1995, that you somehow got set in your
ways during one of the worst periods of American Agricultural chemical
dependency & can't evolve. You seek magic bullets which provide harmful
illusory & temporary fixes, & have no patience to do it right & achieve a
healthy balance. Many of the most startling strides forward in improved
agricultural techniques are less than ten years old, & that's especially
true for apples that have undergone a veritable revolution just in the
last decade.

I go by results. I'm not going to paint my fruit with the disgusting Surround
stuff. Spray chemicals on fruit break down within weeks from the sun. I also
thoroughly wash my fruit with soap before eating to insure that there is no
residue. My results are not illusory and certainly not temporary. My fruit
comes out clean every season, without fail. Despite all the claims by the
fruit developers, they have a long long way to go before they get my
attention.

Sherwin D



-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

paghat wrote:

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

I have religiously cleaned all fruit from my backyard. I tried all
these traps,
and still the insects have come. There are no other fruit trees in my
neighborhood
to account for this infestation. The traps help somewhat, but don't do
a complete job.

But you're dead wrong in your belief that a few trees in the backyard are
less apt to respond to organic principles.

Thats not what I said.

You're dead wrong that the body
of knowledge developed at experimental horticultural stations & put into
practice by organic growers have no application to the backyard orchard.

Again, no what I said. I have incorporated several organic methods into
my backyard, some of which have had limited results. I do feel that the
organic methods cannot do the complete job of protecting the fruit.


Since you refuse to adhere to any method that does not permit you to see
everything die right before your eyes in a matter of seconds, you'll never
have a clue how easy organic gardening can be. It's not something you try
for a month on one tree then discard -- you have a toxified diseased
property & to establish any holistic semblance of an organic balance would
require more than you quickly discarding all organic techniques.

I don't know why paghat keeps talking about commercial orchards. We are
home gardeners,
who grow things in our backyards, on a much smaller scale. Insect
damage is more
distributed in a large commercial orchard, so if a small percentage of
the trees get hit,
there are many others to take up the slack. That is not the case of a
home orchard,
where you have only a handful of trees, usually one tree per variety.
If one of those
trees gets hit, you have lost that variety of fruit for the season.

That's pretty irrational stuff you've trundled out there. Organic gardens
are healthier gardens; they are not more prone to insect attack, they are
less prone. You have to keep using toxins because dependence breeds
dependence, not because there is no better way.

Even more intriguingly however, you previously you argued the opposite:

A commercial orchard cannot closely monitor the effects of hundreds of
trees, and therefore takes a 'blanket' approach to control.

So which irrational thought are you promoting? Only big orchards can be
organic because they can afford more diseases, while back yards can't be
organic because that one tree will surely be dieased? Or only back yard
growers can be organic because they can focus on each plant, but big
orchards MUST take a blanket approach with toxins?

Organic growers must limit their varieties of fruit to disease resistant cultivars
or they will soon be out of business. Backyard orchardists can do a better
job of spraying if they are knowlegable, mainly because they don't have to
monitor hundreds of trees.



You are shifting the argument back & forth so that you can continue to
believe toxins are next to godliness, & you're not sounding rational.

In reality QUALIFIED commercial orchards easily monitor their trees just
as will any skillful backyard orchardist. But lazy second-rate growers &
backyard amateurs might not bother, & thus frequently end up with a toxic
pig-apple harvest.

Not all backyard orchardists are lazy.



But yes, from the chemical-dependent grower's point of view, shortcuts are
the only important thing, even if the shortcuts are illusory & based on
ignorance.

Believe me, like any business, the organic commercial growers take shortcuts
if it saves them time and money.

If you create an unhealthy environment & try to fix it with
poisons instead of with improved horticultural techniques, obviously you
just set yourself up for a cycle of seasonal failures -- & every time you
MUST use toxins to keep things from going away, that's evidence of failure
which begets failure. If it SEEMS to be a shortcut, it is indeed apt to
count for much more than quality, valuation, blance, health, & safety.

This is why commercial organic growers are on the cutting edge of today's
orchard industry & are not bankrupting at the same staggering rate as
chemical-dependent growers. Organic apples have an expanding marketplace;
the chemical-dependent have whiners & complainers wishing George Bush
would bail them out the graves they dug for themselves. It's also why
promoters of chemical swill have to pretend very clear findings from the
same horticultural stations & USDA can't possibly be right if a hand-out
from Ortho or Monsanto says otherwise.

I really don't care about commercial growers and neither should you. This
newsgroup is for home gardeners. If you want to wage your campaign against
commercial growers, seek another newsgroup.



You should also mention that these traps are very expensive, especially
the pheromones. I have
not noticed any significant retardation of insect attacks using them, so
I will not rely
solely on their effectiveness.

No pheramones are used to trap apple maggots

I meant to say Codling Moths. The pheremones attract the moths to
the trap, where they get ensnarred.

, so what in the world are you
doing? Everything incorrectly, obviously.

If you can afford jugs of gawdawful expensive chemicals, you can afford $3
sticky traps, as that's the cheapest on the market; really pretty ones
made as much for human delight rather than just to attract pests can cost
ten or twelve dollars each. And sure, you COULD pay $20 or even more if
you'd rather have a really decorative one with a nice green leaf sticking
out of the top -- even those are pretty cheap since you can re-used
forever, recharging them with scented sticky-bait, which is cheap.

That's why I have given up on pheremones, and gone over to sticky balls.
However, it is no easy task to smear that stuff on, hang them up, and then
take them down.



The traps are not hard to make at home for nothing, even an old christmas
tree ornament will do the trick -- the total cost would be for the baited
glue, which if you get screwed for the price it might cost $7 for enough
of the scented sticky bait to charge three old ornaments from the attic or
thrift store if you were too damned cheap to spring for a manufactured
trap -- the total cost for the year could be less than many of us pay for
coffee in a single day (chai in my case lately). Since the traps work
pretty well even without the scented lure, you could just recharge the
ornament with tanglefoot -- that'll save you on that goshawful expense of
$7 for the baited equivalent.

As for pheramones, you were talking about apple maggot lures. The scented
bait does NOT consist of pheramones. They are food bacteria -- they
attract most of the fruit-targetting flying pests of which apple maggot is
the biggest nuisance, & do it without killing fifteen kinds of beneficial
insects that also protect the trees.

I meant to address the Codling Moths when refering to pheramones. However,
I also tried the attractant sold for apple maggot flies, which was also very expensive.
I now rely strictly on sticky balls.

Nowadays the lure is built right into
the product's sticky component so it costs nothing extra for its first
year's use. You can buy the baited glue separately to make home-made traps
or revitalize an old ones you say you paid too much for. It's nonsense to
say this is too expensive while you spend a far greater fortune on toxins.

And if your low level of knowledge in these matters really did cause you
to put some sort of costly pheramone in an overpriced decorative trap

I was going for Codling Moths, so my approach was valid.

,
you've nothing to blame but your own ignorance that it didn't work & it
cost too much. And this kind of insanity is how your "personal experience"
taught you organic methods are no good is it? Criminy!

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

"lgb" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
Anyone older than 15 who is not aware of the dangers of pesticides should
not be allowed to leave their bedroom. Ever.


I'm aware of the dangers inherent in driving my car or riding my
motorcycle, too. That doesn't stop me from doing so. Nor of having an
almost perfect driving record for 55 years (a couple of speeding
tickets).

Your attitude strikes me as fanatical. There are times when pesticides
are called for. And different compounds used have greatly varying
toxicities.

For example, Sevin, which is quite toxic, is the only thing I've found
that will knock out elm beetle grubs before they deleaf my elm trees. I
wear coveralls and a respirator when I use it, usually once a year.

Malathion, OTOH, is relatively inoucous and I use it to kill thrips and
aphids on my rose bushes and Japanese honeysuckle with short sleeves, no
gloves, and no respirator.

I realize this won't convince you, but I wanted to make others aware
that not all of us are environmental fanatics or, on the other side,
reckless rednecks who spray evrything in sight with the deadliest stuff
we can find. So that's all I'm going to say on the subject.

I'm not a fanatic, and I'm not going to apply any adjectives to YOU. But,
you might ask yourself a question. When you make statements like "relatively
innocuous", what are you basing that on?

"lgb" wrote in message
...


BTW, I use absolutely no chemicals on my vegetable garden other than
Miracle Grow. In that case the benefits aren't worth the risk.


Bingo! You're just like me, then. So, before you call me a fanatic, you
should read the entire discussion from the beginning. The OP asked a
question which reveals total lack of experience or knowledge. From his
question, we had no choice but to assume that he wanted to spray food crops
as well as ornamentals. I cannot prove that this was the case, nor can you
disprove it. But, everyone knows people who see (or hear) only the word(s)
they were looking for (such as "sure", or "yep - go ahead", don't listen to
or read the rest, and run right out the door to buy armloads of whatever
they were asking about.

In such cases, the only proper response is to jackknife a tractor trailor in
the middle of the conversation, spur a debate, and hope the OP will read it
all.

"paghat" wrote in message
news

The bacillus can permanently retard beetle populations keeping their
populations indefinitely in decline so that the need to fight them becomes
lessoned year by year, & the temptation to use toxins eventually reduced
to none.

This requires a thinking process which extends beyond 15 minutes. Not
applicable in many cases. :-) Bugs cause people to become irrational. People
will plant trees, knowing full well they may take 5 years to look good.
They'll slowly put away $$$ for retirement or their kids' college. They'll
budget 3 years out to buy a boat or a bunch of woodworking equipment. All
require long term thinking, and patience.

But, unfortunately, certain organic bug control methods seem to have
emotional alarms attached to them. So, even if you show people 10 ag college
studies indicating that Bt works nicely (but takes longer than 3 days), they
simply shut down and won't consider it. The bugs must vanish NOW. And,
anyone who suggests completely effective non-chem alternative is a
tree-hugging fanatic.

According to our guvmint, about 25% of non-organic farmers are behaving like
tree-hugging fanatics whenever possible. The reason is simple: Unlike some
of the air-head home gardeners who think they're "informed" because they
read the back of the Ortho container, farmers HAVE to read in order to stay
in business.