I grow apples in the Okanagan in British Columbia. We have smaller farms but the
plantings are high density 1800 to 2000 trees per acre. The hype about sprays is as
distorted as the organic label. Most people don't know that most if not all of the
organic food is not inspected. As someone who has been on many boards, the new
pesticides used are target pests, they kill codling moth but not lady bugs and other
predatory insects. They also have less harmful materials. For example Guthion used to be used, it had a re entry date of 18 days believe it or not. Now things like
Calypso or Altacor, you can safely re enter the orchard in less than 24 hours. In many
cases reduced risk products are being used with organic spray materials and there are quite a few, yes organic farmers spray. In addition, pheromones are being produced that result in mating disruption rather than spraying at all. In addition we
have an SIR program that actually uses sterile codling moths released into the
orchards as well. Farmers and ours is a family farm, are becoming more efficient
and using a mixture of methods to produce high quality food, with less pesticides
and a variety of pest control methods. We are also addressing the food safety issue
as well. Lots of things happening in farming these days.
