This is not the case for commercially available tree fruits. All varieties that exhibit resistance to insects, fungi or bacteria have been produced by standard breeding techniques. If you know of an example that was not produced by standard breeding please enlighten us.
--beeky
Stephen Henn> sherw>
"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:
But these disease resistant plants have someth> This is not the case for commercially available tree fruits. All varieties
That is only true in the USA and other countries that are paranoid by Genetically Engineered fruit. Examples:
papaya:
Maybe we need to clarify and agree on definitions here. Example: Ever since I began gardening in the early 1970s, there've been tomatoes designated as resistant to verticillium wilt. Catalogs designate these as "VF". These varieties of tomato were created by selecting those that seemed to have natural resistance, and producing the seed on a large-scale basis. This is absolutely NOT the same process as the one you're describing, which involves creating plants which contain botanical compounds to fight certain problems. I've read some horror stories about that method, as I'm sure you have.
Curious. Who determines if they are unattended? Do the owners have a say in this? Diseased trees can sometimes be recovered. Sounds like a big invasion of personal property.
Sherwin D.
What I should have said that there are organically grown fruits, but no organic fruits.
Have you checked the prices in Garden Alive's catalog for pheremone lures. It would cost a fortune to cover anyone with more than just a handfull of trees. If you take all those photos as the gospel, well I can't help that. Commercially, it is also more expensive when you consider the attrition rate of damaged fruit vs. the cost to grow it. Maybe that is why the consumer pays inflated prices for organically grown fruit and vegetables at the store.
Sherwin D.
I have not heard of such splicing of genes as you describe, at least not in the pome fruits. There is no way I know of to splice chrysanthemum into a pome fruit. Most of the disease resistant fruits currently available have evolved due to DNA restructuring, and not gene splicing. The chrysanthemum splicing has been done on potatoes and wheat, but not fruits.
If they ever do come up with a 'built-in' pesticide fruit, there is no guarantee that it will be a good tasting option. I don't think it will be a simple choice to pick the fruit of your choice.
Sherwin D.
I can see dry air reducing the fungus problems, but what about the insects? If you have none, you are truely blessed.
Sherwin D.
Sherwin D.
Maybe a nearby neighbor has something which interests the bugs more than his own fruit trees.
Not sure what you're trying to say here.
I don't buy anything other than Gnatrol from Gardens Alive and I do that with a 20.00 off coupon. However, the photo's are accurate to show the diseases of most backyard fruits.
Gallo Wine has been growing organic grapes for decades. The produce at the store is tricky. Like, they sell organic bananas. I've never known a reason to spray a banana plant, so they are all basically organic.
I see organic produce and its priced about ten percent more than conventionally grown produce.
People who are reliant on chemically produced fruit set up conditions in the soil to be unable to support healthy fungi and other organisms in the soil which contribute to fruit production.
The way you grow organic fruit, commercial production included is to support healthy soils, use of certified organic fertilizer, addition of compost each year, good soil aeration, proper hygiene after the production season is over, not leaving diseased fruits laying around, etc. There is nothing anyone can do about rot on peaches, organic OR synthetic. There's a lot more to it than you are willing to learn.
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Then sherw> Curious. Who determines if they are unattended? Do the owners have a say
This happened in 2001. Florida had an infestation of citrus canker bacteria which growers feared would decimate the commercial citrus industry. To control the infestation authorities came in and removed all domestic citrus trees, healthy or not, no choice. They were protecting the commercial groves.
Details:
They don't have insect problems
What about diseases not related to insects, or chemicals applied to minimize rotting during shipment?
It is a fact of life that in my six years on the West Coast I have seen many fruit trees producing quality fruit organically. Not just fig trees and citrus, which is understandable, but apple trees, apricots, and all sorts of plums, even in cool climates like Eugene or Portland. It could be the the lack of alternate hosts for apple maggot and curculio in the area, so that they might simply not be there. When i was living in the Bay Area, there was an abandoned orchard of Red Delicious apples a mile from my place. The trees, you could tell they had not been pruned in decades. You could go there and fill bags of the sweetest apples, and they were all good. I saw a similar abandoned orchard in the Utah high desert, and the apples were also good.
For that matter, I have seen good apples growing on wild trees and abandoned orchards on Beaver Island, which is in the middle of Lake Michigan. They were mostly cider apples (I was there in August, so I could taste them), which probably were planted when the island was a refueling center in mid-1850. They were unblemished by insect. Probably insects were never brought in.
and chickens of course. Virtually all organic apple orchards have chickens to clean up the orchard. Not really new technology - chickens have been used as garden pesticides/weedkillers for thousands of years. In the case of apples, both apple maggots and curculio overwinter as grubs in the first two inches of soil, just within chicken range. If you have seen them in action, eating everything from the most invisible seed to 2-ft snakes, you know that they are very efficient. If you let them into the garden when the veggies are up they will destroy it in a day.
I use chemicals occasionally and I have more fruit than I know what to do with. I'm thinning and thinning, and I still can't reduce it enough.
These are good practices, but I'm not going to pay extra for the certified organic fertilizer. I don't like drawing comparisons to religion, but it reminds me of orthodox people (Muslims, Jews, etc.) who pay a big premium to have their meat slaughtered in the correct fashion so it can be certified acceptable.
I'm sorry but I don't belong to the church of organic.
Sherwin D.
The only chickens in my suburb are the ones serving on the village board.
Sherw> Jangchub wrote:
That's a nice buzz phrase which tells me you have no idea what organic growing is. A bag of certified organic fertilizer costs me 18 dollars and it covers 7,500 square feet, hardly paying extra.
I'm not in the church of trying to explain.
I just HAVE to share this story!
I used to keep laying hens. Oh, those big, gorgeous yolks that practically stoodup and saluted! Real organic. too.
Though they had plenty of room to scratch around back in their own fenced off area, I used to let them out into the yard to "play" once in a while.
My office gives on the yard, so when the phone rang, and I had to answer it (this was before mobiles), the chickens figured out that one pretty quick; no sooner did the phone ring, they knew I was going to answer it, so they HURLED themselves on my veg garden and commenced to destroy.
Dom't tell me chickens are stupid (well, like Pavlov's dogs...
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