My pleasure. The wonderful thing about gardening forums is that there are others with common interests, who derive enjoyment from gardening in similar ways. I'm a fan of both the flora and the fauna.
Your organic greenhouse sounded great. :-)
EV
Hang on there! I'm actually proactive in a natural kind of way. I'm new to fruit trees, but have been gardening organically for more decades than I care to admit. My garden usually does quite well with a minimum of the most benign possible intervention.
My plums are not great this year, true, but most other things have done fabulously well, despite, or because of, the cool, wet growing season. Why not the plums? If I can figure out what went wrong, I can take measures to try to prevent it from happening again.
Reading everyone's suggestions pointed up causes that weren't uppermost in my mind. For instance, Paghat mentioned nearby farms. I don't think they're close enough, but it reminded me that there's is a huge, overgrown vacant lot 100 yards away that was partially bulldozed when a structure was removed. The property has some apple and crabapple trees in horrible condition, as well as all kinds of berry brambles in bad shape. The destruction of their habitat might have lead to some of the bad bugs migrating.
There's an old Italian guy just up the road who had a stroke about 5 years ago and can't maintain his fruit trees. His fruit probably rots on the ground.
Both of these factors could explain some of the problem.
The weather has also affected the insects. Populations vary with every growing season. Every year I try to spot as many of the bugs as I can. This year there have been more sawflies, plant bugs, plum and black vine curculios, pear slugs, a few types of hoppers, and ladybugs than usual. I've seen fewer varieties of butterflies, and fewer individuals ... even cabbage whites, but there are a fair number of moths of various kinds ... including fruit moths, and Iris borers. I guess it's my own fault for having so many night flowering plants. ;-) Other insect numbers and diversity seem to be about normal for here, though maturity cycles are delayed for most. I look for population patterns.
My attitude is that that if I maintain good gardening practises, and take the necessary precautions, next year will be better for the plum. There are things that I can do, but other things are beyond my control.
I'm within spitting distance of a golf course, and they spray gawd knows what. Several of my neighbours hire companies to spray toxics so that their lawns will be weed and grub free. Luckily, some others are too cheap, and some have even come around to a more organic approach after seeing my garden.
I keep a photo journal of the garden every year. I'll be putting August up in the next few days, but here's July:
EV
sherwindu expounded:
And you pursue your chemical kick like a religion. I'd rather follow the organic cult. As a matter of fact, I do.
Don't know about Orkin, but I will put in a good word for some local pest control guys. We had a tiny baby at home and *several* yellowjacket nests near the front and side porches. Something *had* to be done.
Called a local pest control guy (not someone from the big chains). Watched him through the front window while he smoked the nests, raked them up and into heavy plastic bags, sealed them up and hauled them away. It was worth every penny I paid him just to see that. (He remarked how unusual is was to see so many wasp nests so close together.) Problem solved; other than a few stragglers the next day, they were gone.
Now, I'm sure the guys at the big chains would be pushing to get you set up as a regular customer for all kinds of preventative pesticide applications. (That was the case when I called the company which starts with T and ends in X.) But not every possible solution involves massive amounts of pesticides...
Paghat, have you ever written a brief response? Oh yes, I did see one once. Of course you quoted several pages before that response, so the effect was the same.
Now a report on the yellowjackets. I actually called Terminex. The responder donned his protective clothing, located the nest, "froze" it with about a 5 second burst of something, took down the nest and carted it away. He informed me that the yellowjackets would be angry the rest of the day and would die overnight. Apparently they need the nest.
I went out this morning and there wasn't a yellowjacket to be found anywhere in the vicinity.
So - problem solved, no massive pesticide application, and you can kill them without waiting for evening.
Seems to me you doth protest too much :-).
That is my style also.
I do appreciate this thread. There were points brought out of which I either had not been aware, had forgotten, or not realized the importance. For instance, I have left fruit on the ground for the winter birds. I will now confine that to one area which will be destroyed (covered with a good coating of fresh manure!) before springtime is in bloom. Two years ago, I taped some wonderful video of one of our feathered friends eating apples, something that is a great thing to have. Though we put up a nesting box for it, the squirrels took it over so he/she nested elsewhere. :-(
Last summer, while driving in the car, I heard a marvelous show on NPR about a farm in the Midwest that farms all organically with both livestock and crop rotation. It was a fairly large farm and outproduced all of its chemical-using neighbors, quite impressively (yes, they gave actual production rates of the farms in the area). Did anyone here, by some remote chance, hear the program? I was driving with no opportunity of writing down anything, and my short-term memory is often garbage, one of the side effects of my son's death. I would dearly appreciate if anyone heard that program and knows where the farm is located and lets us/me know.
Something I've often not understood is how so many people could exist without chemicals and produce sufficient food for so many thousands of years and we backyard gardeners sometimes feel the need to grab the chemicals. My ladybugs and birds are my pesticides. My elbow is my herbicide. It works. Good fortune has contributed to my garden, but respect for the critters and plants has probably also helped tremendously. I read the cautions on the labels of "that stuff" and it scares me; if this is what they admit to, what else is there? It seems logical to me that they will not put even one precaution on that label that they are not required to place there; what else do they know (and deny) that they do not place there? (And, yes, that concern extends to commercially marketed food products.)
Glenna
you are a great person, ev...and i would LOVE it if you could possibly contact me via private email...my earthlink spam go-getter will say HALT! all spammers who go there...just request to be entered into my address book and then we can communicate more closely without all the nuts. oh!! how do you know that "I" am not a nut?? well...i am, sorta. i am a nut about not adding any more chemicals to the waterways (one thing no one has happened to mention). i'm also a nut against killing the birds, the bees, and any other critter who was here before me (including white-tailed deer). so, if you consider THAT being a nut, by all means, avoid me like the plague...otherwise, dya think we could be gardening buddies?
Wow! I stand corrected. God has spoken!
I should have known better than to argue with a fanatic.
I am not going to let you have the last word on this.
I asked you for specific information on all these university reports about the wonders of fruit grown organically, and you ignore the issue. Give me a document location on the web that backs up your contention of superior tasting fruit from organic orchards.
I have not said that organic prevention is totally worthless. I don't rely on spraying insecticides to do the entire job. I use sticky traps, wasp traps, and even nets around the fruit to keep the bugs from attacking. My only contention is that for the nastier bugs, organic sprays have not yet reached a state of the art where they can do the job. So if it comes to deciding between spraying and losing fruit, I'll choose the later. Also, you have not mentioned spraying for fungicides and organic ways to
prevent those problems. I have used organic sprays, like Rotenone, in the past, and
they just don't do the job. Maybe in your part of the country, you don't have the problems with Apple Maggots, etc. like we have in the Midwest. I would be surprised if you don't have some kind of pesky bugs, but not knowing about Washington State, I can't judge the effectiveness of organic prevention.
I didn't say organic gardening was a cult, but the way you try and push it down our throats gives the appearance of a cult (like this is the ONLY truth, and all gardening nonbelievers will not get into gardener's heaven). Also, your snide remarks against
not believers makes me think that you follow organic gardening like a cult. I know some organic gardeners, and none of them threatens me with fire and brimstone if I don't mend my ways.
Show me actual facts, and real documentation, and proof that organic gardening will work in the really difficult cases, and then I am ready to switch over.
Sherw> >
I'm not ev but did send you an email and got the blocker thing. However, when I tried to unblock, my computer locked up so you'll have to do something on your end to accept it. :-(
Glenna
Crop rotation is not the exclusive domain of organic farmers.
I missed the show too. You might try contacting NPR directly for details.
Yes, but how many people died of starvation and the world population was a lot smaller than now.
It would scare me more if there were no cautions. We enjoy the protection of many government agencies, like the FDA, to check on these thing to keep us warned and healthy. Just putting an 'organically grown' label on food does not convince me of it's purity. I wash all my fruits and vegetables from the market and my garden, and that's the best insurance policy.
That's why I'm glad we live in the USA, where these things are controlled. Drug manufacturers put all kinds of possible side effects on their labels. Does that mean we should stop taking our medications, which in many cases is keeping us alive?
Sherwin Dubren
(...)
Excuse me, but organic growers are known for growing varieties which are disease and pest resistant. It's part of the holistic approach to organic growing. I have only tasted bad 'Delicious' apples when they were woody or lay around too long, other than that, they are superior in taste, IMO, to many other varieties of eating apples.
You are also incorrect about "profit motive" since many organic farms are very small, and sell their produce at farmers markets, not on grocery shelves. I have news, the grocery stores hike up the prices, not the growers. For instance, bananas. If you see the word organic on a banana, it's generally a useless term. Bananas normally never need pesticides to produce. In the case of organic bananas, they are grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers. The store hikes up the price because they are in their special organic section. I shop either at the farmers market, or Whole Foods Market and their prices are maybe 5% more than commercially grown foods, which use pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. I know because Whole Foods Market also sells conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, so I see the price side by side in many cases.
Oh, yes, people indeed DO get cancer from the chemicals being used. But since the toxin developers are in bed with politicians, not much will be done about it, at least till we get a different administration. AND, in one month, to take this to another level, you'll once again be able to buy an AK47.
Good morning sunshine.
Need a good, cheap, knowledge expanding present for yourself or a friend?
You do seem to tend to read into things something which was not said, don't you?
I did not say crop rotation was exclusive to organic farmers. I only said that particular farm produced more product with both animal and crop rotation and no chemicals of any kind.
Crop rotation has been practiced for thousands of years by those who observed nature. If you look through U.S. history, you will find Ben Frankin's writings on that very thing. Chemical fertilizers only work in the short-term which is why they must be re-applied constantly, and, yes, I consider every growing season as constantly. Through my childhood, I watched my grandfather run a productive farm in eastern Washington utilizing crop rotation and no commercial fertilizers. It makes no sense to purchase something that is free if one plans ahead.
I will continue to believe there is no valid reason for back yard gardeners to spray chemicals on their food/yards. One might believe many do it to be "in" because they see the advertisements that say it works. It's rather like folks buying the latest fashion in clothes, appliances or cars. It ain't because it's better, it's so they can be kool.
As many people die of starvation today as did in bygone years. Where have you been?! That the population is larger doesn't say a lot about the quality of life for those who are less fortunate than us. I might counter by asking with how many people, in a world which is healthier and more advantaged than centuries ago, die of things related to chemicals.
You can offer no valid defense of back yard gardeners using this stuff in their gardens/yards to me that will convince me to reach for that bottle of pesticide. Ladybugs (and other predatory insects) and birds do a very good job. Miracle Gro and other such products offer a short-term fix only; healthy soil lasts. The truth to me appears to be that it's just easier, a quick fix, like sending the kids to the neighbors to play because they are irritating at that moment.
You try to compare a time when we have all the advantages of machinery for harvest with a time when the hands and backs of individuals were all the harvesting machinery available. At this point in time, I'm living in the last half of my life and have observed many things about our humanoids. Sadly, we are called humans but we are more sheep in that we believe things if we see it enough. War is a good example . . . living through the Viet Nam era was a convincer. People have become accustomed to violence in all forms as they see it on the evening news, horrible, unspeakable things have been broadcast, and have come to accept it as they become far too used to it, after all, it won't happen to them, will it? It's the same way with chemicals related to food.
Look at medicine. After moving away from literally all traditional treatments after WW II, the medical community is re-embracing centuries-old treatments as valid and effective. Current medical students are learning many of those discarded practices/treatments. Sadly, we humans are too quick to embrace the new and throw out the old, at least Americans tend that way. Why bother to repair the old when we can buy new seems to be the attitude of the bulk of our population which moves into why use the old methods when the advertisers are pushing new methods at us . . . all methods designed to make a profit for themselves without much concern to what is good for the consumer. Geez, look at the number of SUVs sold to people who live in apartments and never leave the city!
The knowledge is there. We humans should be intelligent enough to use of the old what is good and supplement it with the new, not just replace it.
That there are cautions is no insurance. Have you ever read of what happens before those cautions are ever put on labels, all of the laws that have to be considered and met to require them? How many people are dead of lung cancer right now who might be alive and healthy if those warning labels were on tobacco products in the first part of the 1900s? Or if cigs weren't in the hands of every major actor/actress? I've amazed that anyone can pay to pull smoke into their lungs . . . it defies all logic. Why don't they just build a smoldering fire and inhale? Because they want to be cool, smoke like their favorite actor/actress and they will be handsome/glamorous also.
I didn't see anyone here say that a label of "organically grown" meant purity. We are, after all, talking about home gardening on this group. I'm very aware that I have no control over the food that goes into the animals that produce the manure I put on my garden so there are some unknowns. However, those unknowns are far less harmful to my body or psyche than a bottle of chemicals purchased to make a chemical manufacturer richer.
For the record, it isn't the washing that protects us from what goes into the soil that gets into our food. But even washing does not protect us from surface applications; that stuff does get absorbed into the food itself. Minute? Yes, but minute adds up over time, especially in the bodies of small children.
Dear, dear Sherwin. You really do live in LaLa Land, don't you? We are controlled and protected aren't we? Have you heard of a little thing called Stilbestrol (sp) that led to cancer in female babies, even to hysterectomies in children as young as nine months old? That was an approved drug that was still prescribed to pregnant women long after they knew the dangers. I know that because my own doctor prescribed it to me in 1968 and 1971 after it was on their warning list. I was fortunate that I didn't go to the doctor until after the danger period in which it caused cancer in the fetus; however, he had the warnings and still prescribed it to someone who had no idea what it could do to her child. He was one of many thousands of doctors throughout this nation who did the same.
As for those medications that keep us alive, many are killing us whether you want to admit it or not. Take the cholesterol medication as an example. The doctors are only too willing to reach for the prescription pad and the patients only too willing to take a pill instead of living healthier. Oat bran is a good example. A half-cup of oat bran cooked into whatever form is palatable and eaten every morning will do far more than any medication to lower cholesterol; however, doctors don't tell that to patients. Sadly, most don't even know. What's best about it is that it has *no* side affects, meaning no liver damage, no dizziness, no shortness of breath, etc., with the added advantage of adding that necessary fiber to the body. However, you won't get that from your doctor. What you will get is a prescription for one of the meds advertised by the drug companies. The side affects are often then treated with another prescription, and it goes on and on. This is the country which you tout as safe because we have the FDA. Read the inspection percentages of food products done by the FDA. Read who controls the tests done on medications.
Yes, it's nice that we have the protective agencies. It's better than nothing. However, people rely too much that they are doing what we perceive they are doing and therein lies the danger, our perception that we are safe because the agency exists. The truth of life is that we must all do what we can to make our lives healthier. For me, that means no chemicals sprayed on my garden. For you that means all sorts of chemicals. Isn't it nice that we have the choice?
The truth is that you can rant on and call other posters names and hint at their intelligence and knowledge, but it won't change those of us who truly want our lives/food to be healthier. It does, however, cause you to appear to be small-minded which you may very well not be at all. There's lots of room in this world for all views and all opinions. The greatest thing about philosophies is that there is no completely wrong or completely right. Debate is good, we all learn if we care to learn. However, insulting others is just plain immature as well as being close minded. As I said in my first post in this thread, I have appreciated this thread and learned from it.
If I were to make a request of you, it would be to debate not to be insulting as some of your comments have appeared to be (and, hopefully, were not meant to be). I don't care if you agree with me, but I do care how you treat others. There is never a valid reason for being rude and insulting to others.
Glenna
Funny. I haven't been following the thread, but knew it was a troll thread from the first post, though I don't think the original poster meant it. Take a lesson.
I feel so very sorry for you if you've never had a Red Delicious that was. It is, indeed, one of the best apples grown. It seems you have had a cold-storage apple from an old crop that was also picked too green. Even growing up in eastern Washington, I could buy those at the store. However, fresh ripe Red Delicious apples directly from the tree on a brisk fall morning are without equal.
In Illinois, you are hardly one to judge what a fresh Washington apple is compared to one that has gone through months of storage and travel. Come to Washington in late October/early November, visit an orchard and eat one there and then tell us what you think.
Washington State, and Hood River area (Oregon), grow the best apples in the world, but like any perishable produce, they must be compared fresh to fresh, not what cold storage has altered. I only think of what my first
*ripe* orange tasted like to know how true that is. How about a ripe Brandywine tomato off the vine on a cool morning? That cannot be compared with the plastic from the store or even one from a farmers' market.For the record, Japan importers pay premium price for Washington apples. Wonder why?
Also, Washington is known for far more apples than the Red Delicious, just for the record. You picked on one that is not a good traveler and tends to get mealy in cold storage. I noted you didn't mention the Golds or even the Gaylas, or the Romes or many other cooking apples that are also grown here.
Yup. Many are. They've learned they can be more productive and, therefore, more profitable, by growing organic. I don't care if they do it for the environment or for profit as long as they do it.
A very dear friend of mine said he wouldn't buy a Prius because he cared about the environment or pollution, that was someone else's problem, that he would buy for efficiency and performance. After much research, he did order a Prius, and is waiting for months to get it, not because he cares about pollution but because of savings to him. I don't care about his reasons because he will be driving a non/minimum-polluting car instead of another all-gasoline car. When I see another Prius on the road, I don't question if that person is environmentally conscious or just financially astute, I simply appreciate that there will be that much less pollution in the air, the air which I breathe.
Whether a farm is organic for production or for profit (though often the two are hand-in-hand), doesn't matter to me. What matters is there are fewer chemicals, many of which cause much harm to us as well as to the environment (which is also us!). Anything that tells me to wear protective clothing or to not get it on my skin is something I shouldn't be using, either inside or outside. But then, I don't use drain cleaner either because *hot* water regularly in the pipes does the job (and use a sink strainer!). I might add that a previous owner constantly was calling a plumber to unclog the drains, the same drains I've not had a problem with in the five years I've owned this house.
So, are you saying people don't get cancer from chemicals? How naive you appear to be.
WSU has web pages which, if you are interested, can lead to your answers.
Some were. Most were depleting the soil and moving on which is exactly what would be happening today if there were anywhere to move to.
There will be no world famine if we stop spraying insecticides in our back yards. That is just plain absurd. This group is about the home gardener, not about major farming conglomerates, or undeveloped countries that do not have irrigation available and other such advantages that lead to good production. There's a lot more to famine than pesticide spraying.
And too often are. I have neighbors that use them as a matter of course. I never have and have no problem with undesirable bugs. Fortunately, as my every-spring introduction of ladybugs has been happening, the others have reduced/stopped spraying as they find no need to do so. Suppose it might be the increase of beneficials from my own yard that might be contributing to this? Gee, let's think about this for a moment.
I truly believe each of us can make a difference, and do, good or bad.
Glenna
Provide a REAL citation for that fatuous chemical industry propoganda slogan, the blurting out of which indicates nothing but that you're a hopeless case. You demanded citations from me & got them though obviously you never really wanted them & still could not care any less about the truth. You persist in this kind of merely political myth-making -- still being that suicidal nutcase who no matter how many reasons to live he is given, always has one more excuse why you should even so shoot yourself in the head, taking down as many others as with you as you can.
Your knowledge of the causes of famine is way down there in the zero range with much else you've been mistaken about this week. Get this if you get nothing else:
Chemical dependency leads to environmental degradation leads to famine. Organic farming is sustainable.
I will follow up with my usual complete overview, but if you're capable of learning, all you need is the above two sentences to be much less foolish than you've been up to now.
In some regions starvation has resulted because the best land has been turned over to coffee bean production or sugar cane or some similar crop to be shipped to the west, all land & profits gained by the land belonging to a ruling wealthy minority, & no aerable land is available to peasants. In other places it is due to patterns of drought & cataclysmic climate changes such as the expansion of the Sahara. In others it is due exclusively to warfare or to scorched-earth campaigns. In others it is due to concentrations of populations due to migration to finite areas, resulting from drought & desert expansion or even more commonly from warfare. In the distant past there have been famines caused by dependency on single crops & those single crops became diseased, & there is some worry that this may recur in the future due to agribusiness's reliance on decreasing numbers of species & strains of those species. In India which many years ago undertook an unfortunate transition toward chemical dependency for nationalistic reasons has increased the amount of land that can no longer be farmed at all because toxic salts have built up from continuous use of chemical boosters & pesticides -- this land is being abandoned by rich agriculturalists but it is no longer useful for peasants to farm.
So there are many causes of famine.
Organic farming has never been one of them.
As reported by the Soil Association in SOIL: The Importance & Protection of Living Soil (2001), chemical & biotech dependent crops have been leaching soil to death, & are will lead to famine. They recommend a return, in both Europe & Africa, to organic farming methods which are the only sustainable methods in the long run, besides producing a higher quality of produce in the short run.
Even if SOME crops could be increased with chemical dependency, that issue has no relevance in improverished parts of the globe which cannot afford the chemicals. Whereas improving upon their own traditional methods can increase crop yields 200 to 300% without resorting to chemicals. While chemical fertilizers & pesticides deplete soil over time & kill its essential living microorganisms, improving organic methods increases soil richness & increases microorganism population, hence SUSTAINABLE increases in crop production WITHOUT chemicals.
While the CHEMICAL and BIOTECH (GM) companies have undertaken a world-wide campaign to promote the idea that organic growers in Europe & the USA are "criminal" for turning more & more to organic farming, because they could otherwise be growing much more chemical-dependent crops & send the excess to famine-stricken countries. This of course is completely fatuous since growers in the west can even be paid to grow NOTHING due to overproduction driving costs down. At any hour, this very hour, world hunger would end if all it took was to distribute more food from the west to countries where drought or warfare or peasant lack of access to aerable land has caused starvation. Blaming organic gardening for any of it is on the surface completely loony -- you swallowed it because you already convinced yourself of a lie before someone handed you a greater lie to reinforce your first one.
The reality is that organic farming for orchard crops & many annuyal crops produces the same or more produce than chemical dependent farming, does so more cheaply, in a manner that protects the soil for future crops. Even those annual crops that CAN be increased in yield with chemical dependency deplete soil at such a rapid rate that land is soon depleted; in Brazil the answer to this problem is to take a load of chemicals deeper into the jungle, slash & burn so that nothing of the jungle remains, & start over with a very few years of high-yield crops ending in land that can never be used again. The chemical biotech industrialists expertly trumpet "High Yield Non-Organic Farming" with no underlying science to support what is purely a POLITICAL campaign so that a very few biotech & chemical giants can control the production of food in third-world countries.
In villages where traditional methods are still practiced, yields are low but meet the local needs. When it becomes necessary to buy chemical fertilizers & pesticides or special herbicide-resistant grains, the expectation is not to feed people better but to have a salable excess beyond local need; unfortunately, even if "greed is good" it is not good in this situation. Profitable excess never happens in regions where the main feature to overcome is limited water resources. Even in the fewer cases where profitable short-range profits do occur from momentary high yelds, the soil is rapidly depleted & the short-range gain ends in long-run losses -- & famine. By then the soil may take years to restore if it ever is restored, & the interuption in the use of traditional methods results in extinction of sustainable seed strains, making it difficult to return to the sustainable organic methods.
As oil-based products skyrocket in price, chemical-dependent crops become less & less economically feasible. There are no chemical-dependent farming methods that have ever been shown to increase production in regions with limited water resources, & if the Hopi became non-organic farmers tomorrow, their corn strains would soon become extinct. And indeed, one of Monsanto's great goals is to drive desert-hardy, fertile, & sustainable corn crop strains to extinction, in favor of their own seed alleged to provide super-crops (impossible in desert conditions) which produce crops that are sterile so that no percentage of the seed can be held back for future crops. The purpose is NOT being to feed starving people but to make starving people perpetually dependent on agribusiness for their seed. No cash for the next year's seed, say hello to famine.
The governments of Kenya , Uganda & Tanzsania, in order to fight famine by the best means, have undertaken nations-wide campaigns to re-establish & upgrade sustainable organic farming methods. The chemical companies' successful intrusions to do away with organic farming practices have been a direct contributor to the destruction of croplands.
The BETTER system would have been, & still is, to share advances in organic methods that may improve on localized primitive agricultural systems without doing away with those traditional systems. Just one example: the use of compost toilets can make an entire village a source of organic fertilizer, breaking the cycle of dependency on chemical fertilizer to prop up depleted soils; the use of the organic compost will reverse soil depletion caused by the use of chemicals, thus resulting in better more sustainable produce. Every problem has an organic answer that in every case does indeed turn out to be the superior choice.
-paghat the ratgirl
some random quotes from others:
"If you apply organic principles and you take care of the soil in the proper way, you can very much increase your yield. This is the most sustainable way, not only for the export market but also for food security." [Thomas Cierpka, executive director, International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements]
"Contrary to what its opponents sometimes suggest, organic farming is not in the least anti-science and looks to biological science particularly for assistance in dealing with fertility, crop pests and diseases. Although research institutes in Europe have done much pioneering work and several new centres are coming on-stream, Cuba probably has more scientific resources employed in organic farming research than the rest of the world combined. It had to - otherwise there could have been famine back in the '90s when it was largely abandoned by its major supporter, the USSR." [Grace Maher, Agriculture & the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Sept 2002]
"Output levels in organic farming can match and exceed that of chemical farming - eg see Teagasc, Johnstown Castle, recent report. And where they don't, decent research funds would undoubtedly raise productivity. There are many more studies - I'd be glad to cite them if requested. But, at a practical level, take even my own humble case; I grow garlic, organically, about 40,000 plants, and get yields over 100% more than the European commercial average. Furthermore, a study I made on potatoes shows, remarkably, that modern agriculture still hasn't equalled the output levels achieved in Ireland before the 1840's Famine. .... Chemical farming has left us a legacy of a degraded environment, mountains and lakes of surplus produce, factory farming of animals, decreased employment and profits in agriculture, and, of course, food contamination. Directly add the costs of these effects to our conventional food (which we pay for indirectly anyway) and we'll see the real price of food. The men in white coats are scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments to bolster a losing case. Again, a pro-GM scientist (Conference on GM food, Skibbereen, Feb '99 ) said - almost with a giggle! - that, 'organic potatoes are poisonous and you organic farmers here should throw them all away.'" [Jim O'Connor, Ireland, from a widely circulated letter in the Irish Times]
When I lived in California, perhaps one mile from my place there was an abandoned Red Delicious orchard. It kept pumping out, year after year, the sweetest apples I have ever eaten. They were too sweet, in fact (I much prefer the tart, complex northern varieties, such as Northern Spy or Liberty. And even when it comes to sweet apples, the Michigan Golden Delicious are superior to anything I have tried). No bugs, no blemishes, no spray, no irrigation (no rain for five months before harvest) or fertilization. Incredible. It would take minutes to go there and pick a bushel for the week (I am much the fruitarian in season, ten apples a day is not too much if they are at their top).
I didn't spray the cherry tree at all this year and the insect and brown rot loss wasn't that bad -- less than what I lost to the robins.
I live in Southern Minnesota (there's an oxymoron for ya) and the curcullios and apple maggots are awful here. I don't spray anything until after 100% petal drop out of respect for the bees; they're having a tough time here with the mites. I didn't spray any fungicides this year and it shows, but a little scab on the apples doesn't hurt anything. I stopped spraying in July (out of laziness) and was afraid the apple maggots would ruin everything, but diligent clean-up of fallen apples last year seems to have paid off. In the past, some years even with spraying the apple maggots have totally destroyed my crop.
I would love to get to where insects and disease could be controlled with just a dormant oil spray before the buds break, followed by Integrated Pest Management (with a sprayer of malathion standing by, unused, just in case of emergency.) I don't know if IPM works here or if the insect load is just too high. I think proper orchard hygiene, traps, and minimal spraying whenever the traps show a high insect population might be more effective and more ecological than prophylactic spraying every 10 days and every time it rains.
Bob
I never said they didn't grow these resistant fruit.
I think you should expand your horizons and start tasting more varieties of fruit.
I shop occasionally at Whole Foods Market and the markup is much greater than
5%. I see things like a bunch of organic carrots selling for two dollars, while the non-organic bunches are selling for one dollar. These growers are not stupid. If they see the fruit selling for higher prices, they would be remiss, if they didn't ask more for their harvest.What's with you organic enthusiasts. Do you all believe the world is going to soon end? Pollution from our factories and vehicles is a much much greater threat than the pesticides being used. When we convert all our energy sources to solar, nuclear, etc., than I think we can worry about the pesticides.
Sherwin D.
Oh, so people in Africa are not starving and they are not having massive crop failures from weather and insects. Programs like National Geographic must be giving me some of that propaganda. Shame of them.
Your so-called documentation is worthless.
I prefer that you shoot yourself in the mouth.
Talk about propaganda!
I don't think I can learn anything from you. All you know is how to insult people.
You did not mention crop destruction by swarms of locusts, etc.
I'm not blaming organic gardening for anything other than a naive concept that it can completely control our pest problems.
Yes, its all a conspiracy to get us.
I see the opposite. In my garden centers, the organic stuff costs way more than the chemical stuff.
There's the same conspiracy theory again.
You accuse me of picking up e-colli laden fruit from under my trees, but you
are pushing the recycling of human waste, which in many cases contains a wealth of harmful bacteria, and I wouldn't trust composting to kill it all.
Why did they have a famine? Wasn't it because of some blight that wiped out their crops? Maybe the right chemicals would have saved more of their potatoes.
Organic farming and gardening is a fine goal to aim for, but there is still a need for chemicals to keep pests under control. Some places can rely more heavily on organic methods, but other's need the chemicals. In my case, a high priority for me is the very best tasting fruit with the least damage. I don't think I can go completely organic in today's world. If and when the organics are developed to do the job, I am ready to convert over. I don't like spraying these chemicals, but for now, there are no good alternatives.
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