North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>]

On Apr 10, 2008, at 12:35 PM, Lucky Pittman wrote:

> So...from perusal of the abstracts, while it is evident that arsenic 
> does leach into the soil,
> there's no evidence that grapes, at least, take up any from the soil, 
> so the likelihood that any may be incorporated into edible 
> fruits/vegetables appears to be infinitesimally slim.
> Lucky

For what it's worth, you're not allowed to use treated posts in a certified organic vineyard. (New ones, anyway; you can convert an old vineyard, I don't think you need to replace all the posts.) My certifier told me to use metal or untreated wood posts (probably locust, if untreated wood; I've seen locust posts in old vineyards that had lasted forty or fifty years in the ground).

I don't know whether the certification agency had some info that the grapes do take up the treatment, or whether they were deciding based on the organic principle that you need to pay attention to the field itself, not just the specific crop you're growing in it right now.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly