Subject: RE: Organic corn From: "William W. Robinson" <roseguy@verizon.net> Organization: Date: Mon, 21 Jan 02 04:59:22 Message-ID: <MOD$020120.28967@rec.gardens.ecosystems>
The issue of pest control on commercial crops is complex. One
of the big problems is that commercial plantings, that is planting
a lot of the same kind of stuff in a designated area, generates a
very un-natural condition. Mono-culture is a bugger!
For a time, I was an agricultural bio-chemist working on cotton
in the Mississippi Delta. We had to deal with zillions and zillions
of acres of cotton that had been in more or less continuous cotton
production for hundreds of years. We ended up with zillions of crop
dusters spraying zillions of lbs. of malathion, etc. and they sprayed
just about everything in sight.
We even had an orchard sprayer operated by the City that went up and
down our city streets blasting mosquitoes with malathion twice a week.
We went back to visit several years later . . . more than a few of
our friends and neighbors from days past had health problems probably
related to this wide-spread use of pesticides.
The "organic" farmer putting in acres of "organic" corn may get by without
major pest problems if he is planting in an area that hasn't been subject to
mono-culture at least for a year or two but, eventually, mono-culture
leads to a serious disruption of the eco-system and eventually, a real
pest problem will develop.
The best answer is crop rotation and keep things as clean as possible.