North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark & Helen Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

Enjoyed the poetry of both Mangodancer and Alan.  Organic probably depends
most on locale.  Out west and other parts where there is less rain,
consequently less fungus and insects, organic probably has a lot of
potential.  I still like the idea of organic and may still use some of the
culture, but we have bugs galore here.  I tried planting lots of herbs,
flowers to encourage predators.  What a joke.  As far as I could tell the
flowers/herbs just attracted more blister beetles (especially cilantro,
dill).  Still may do a little fruit bagging though.

Countless times the public has been told various chemicals/substances were
safe(asbestos comes to mind) only to find out they were deadly.  So I can
appreciate and agree with suspicion.  On the other hand natural chemicals
can be just as deadly.  The alkaloid poisons in some plants will bring death
to humans in less than an hour.  If I recall the LD50 of nicotine is fairly
low, as it is for Rotenone (which is approved for organic use.)  LD50 is the
"lethal dose" it takes to kill 50% of a population-generally rats-so a low
LD50 is undesirable.

How long does the stuff stay in the environment?  Some synthetics are
engineered with very short half-lives, others not.  Some organics break down
quickly (Rotenone), others stay around forever (Surround).  It's probably
best for each chemical, natural or synthetic, to be examined for it's
risk/reward.

Mark
KS