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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Now......GMO sweet corn

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Now......GMO sweet corn
  • Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:58:28 -0400

How much acreage are you growing? There is an effective organic control for corn borer; however, it requires walking down the rows with a hand applicator putting a couple of drops of oil in each ear at the right growth stage. While this apparently goes pretty fast with the right applicator, if you have a huge amount of acreage and very few hands to work it with, it may not be practical for you.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6457-zea-later-ii.aspx

To the best of my knowledge, BT does nothing whatsoever to flea beetles. If your flea beetles have also disappeared, my best guess is that something now living in your fields is eating them. If you could figure out what, this information would be useful to a lot of people.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



On Sep 20, 2011, at 10:11 AM, <sunnfarm AT netscape.com> wrote:

To grow sweetcorn in NJ we apply pesticides according to weekly IPM reports. But its always the same story. We spray every 4-7 days from first silk to harvest in June then every 3-4 days in July followed by every 3 days in August and every 2-3 days in September. A sweetcorn field becomes a dead zone. Since Im the guy who has to do all this work, and Ive been doing it for 39 years,  you can see how liberating it is to grow mostly worm free corn without any spraying at all. One benefit of Bt corn, the fields are alive again. Predatory insects, spiders and frogs so thick I have to take care not to step on them. Non Bt target pests like aphids and flea beetles are non existent. Only pesticide application is for sap beetles and that can be done with organics... Bob.




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