North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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

On Dec 5, 2009, at 12:05 PM, Chris Garriss wrote:

> When and where I grew up in MD was a different time in many ways - everyone "out in the country" had lots of fruit - apples (including crabapples), pears, cherries (sweet and tart), peaches, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry....none of them sprayed.  Which is not possible these days.

If possible then, why not possible now?

Have all of these plants had an invasion of pests and diseases which weren't in the area at the time? I expect there are some problems now that didn't exist years ago; but wonder if at least some of the problem isn't destruction of beneficials caused by the very spraying intended to control problems that were minor to start with; or, for that matter, if it isn't still possible now to grow at least some of those species unsprayed, but few people are trying it.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly