Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] GF 120 for cherry fruit fly and neonicotinoid class of pesticides

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] GF 120 for cherry fruit fly and neonicotinoid class of pesticides
  • Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:00:32 -0500


On Feb 11, 2009, at 1:28 PM, Webmail wynne wrote:

. . .
I have read that the Germans have done research suggesting the
neonicotinoid class of pesticides may be/are involved in the decrease
of bee populations worldwide. In my certified organic field, i have
eliminated the use of Entrust (spinosad) for codling moth due to its widespread
kill abilities--the few times i have sprayed this material, all populations
of insects (including the beneficials) have been decimated. . .

Thanks, that's very interesting. I've used spinosad in my yard for the past two years. I sprayed it on the apples and blueberries, and I hired a tree company to spray my oaks. I live in the middle of a serious infestation of winter moths, and spinosad appeared less toxic to me and my pets than the other options that work. (BT is recommended, but you have to spray it within a one or two day window of when the eggs hatch to have any effect at all, and even then most of them survive.) How serious is the infestation? My sister, a couple miles away, had an apple and a pear tree completely defoliated - not a single bit of leaf showing. (They resprouted after the winter moth season ended, and survived, but that can't be good for the trees.) I had zero apple blossoms (they mostly eat the heart out of swelling buds, and selectively eat the fruiting buds before the vegetative buds) and pretty scruffy looking oak leaves the year before I hired the tree company.

I had a long discussion about bees with the tree company, which claims to care about such things. They spray twice and the second spray has been during apple bloom but they both drape the trees with cloth and avoid spraying in that direction. I never spray anything in bloom, of course, and with my little hand-sprayer, there's not enough drift to worry about it getting on the dandelions, etc. (I have flowering weeds, but not right underneath the apples or especially close to the blueberries.) But I'm pretty sure there's drift onto flowering weeds from spraying the oaks.

I haven't seen a honey bee here in more than a decade, so I'm not concerned about contributing to colony collapse disorder, but I have noticed a reduction in the number of bumblebees. I have had excellent pollination both years I used spinosad, despite the decrease in number of bees I see. And my late season insect population has been okay, including praying mantises and other rarer bugs. Still, this is an excellent reason to monitor the situation carefully, and stop spraying as soon as possible. I understand some winter moth parasite or disease has been released locally, and there's hope the population will drop from "infestation" to "nuisance" in a few more years.

Ginda Fisher
eastern Mass., zone 6




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page