North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

I was an instigator to the previous round of this debate and I now realize why some veterans of this site were annoyed with me for stirring up what to them was a tired old contraversy.  Now I'm watching the same arguments go round and round.  It doesn't really bother me because it's easy enough to avoid the arguments and skip over postings that I know will not be informative or interesting to me. 

 

I do resent that chemical controls that I find useful are being taken away from the home orchardist to be replaced by much more expensive and less affective controls that are labeled only for commercial use.  Imidan is an example where I need apply only twice a season and otherwise useless trees become apple factories.  This substance may constitute some kind of environmental hazard when applied to thousand acre orchards that shortly after application have workers in the trees but I wonder if any research has been done on the hazards of carefully spraying a few trees as I do on my property.

 

My wildlife finds my chemically protected fruit much more attractive than that from neglected trees and my native pollinators are varied and extremely numerous- I have provided plantings that provide them with nourishment throughout the season.  My soil appears extremely alive with all manner of teeming life.  I would happily volunteer my property for a study on the long term affects of a low-spray schedule on the ecology of small orchard sites.

 

Comparing the thinking of an advocate of organic agriculture to a terrorist is the reasoning of an Internet thug in my opinion.  The writer of that posting ought to apologize to the list.  Than again, maybe not.  An occasional tasteless comment does add a little spice to the list as long as it doesn't become the norm.