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I figured store bought fertilizers had some chemicals
Wonder what large farms use for pest control.
Saw one time on TV they raised some kind of bug and put them in their crops
to kill and eat the problems bugs.
.
Please please please do not tar all chemicals with the evil brush!! "Chemical" is not a dirty world, and without chemicals, we would all be in trouble. If you do not know anything about fertilizers or pesticides, please do not assume anything. Read and learn.
Synthetic fertilizers are to plants what multivitamin tablets are to humans. Our bodies don't know the difference between vitamin C from an orange and Vitamin C from a tablet. But the orange provides fiber and it's filling, and is usually a better choice.
Fertilizers that are in the organic group tend to be pretty low in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the three main nutrients needed by all plants. They do contain micronutrients though -- substances like sulphur, iron, calcium and about nine others -- which you don't always find in the commercial fertrilizers. (But most soils contain enough micronutrients naturally, even though people like to not believe that.)
Synthetic fertilizers are not dangerous. They absolutely DO NOT kill beneficial soil organisms. They are taken up quickly by plants (organics work slower) and the only time they are trouble is when people dump too much fertilizers on their lawns and gardens and the nitrogen washes into streams and ponds and causes algae bloom in the waterways.
Do not let anyone brainwash you into believing synthetic fertilizers are bad, bad, bad. They are perfectly fine. Also, do not assume everything organic is safe, safe safe, because that is so untrue. Manure is organic -- case in point.
I figured store bought fertilizers had some chemicals
Wonder what large farms use for pest control.
Saw one time on TV they raised some kind of bug and put them in their crops
to kill and eat the problems bugs.
.
That is called a 'biocontrol'. In Nature, there are natural predators, and if you have aphids, for example, ladybeetles will naturally appear because aphids are their foodsource. Praying mantis and green lacewings are also good predators. But you can't always rely on the beneficials alone, and you need to know which pest control products will harm which beneficials and the best time to apply them.
Again, it is complicated, it is never simple. And here is a good example of that. The USDA imported a strain of ladybeetles from Asia, to release into soybean crops to control aphids. Sounds simple, right? WRONG. Those Asian ladybeetles, as it turned out, didn't do their peak feeding at the same time the aphids were chomping down on the soybeans, so they weren't all that effective. And in mid- to late fall when the temperatures fell, the Asian ladybeetles, which are not hardy in cold temperatures, found their way into our homes.
So now we live each winter, killing beetles in the house. Lots and lots of them. Thank you, USDA, for a biocontrol solution gone horribly wrong.
Actually, it is non-scientific, oversimplified, bad advice.
There is no possible way to lump all "bugs" into one group of enemies that can be controlled with a spray of Palmolive. Insect pests like aphids, in small infestations, might be controlled with diluted detergent if you spray directly on them. This is called a "contact killer". Many people spray their plants with soapy water, expecting it to have some residual effect, which it doesn't. Even worse, many people mix up too strong a concentration of soapy water (because if a little does some good, a lot will be even better). That can result in phytotoxicity, a big word that means chemical damage to the foliage -- soap burn.
Aphids are easily controlled. Whiteflies, too. But what do you do about stinkbugs and squashbugs? They laugh at your homemade solutions. Japanese beetles? Almost nothing controls them. Scale insects? Holy cow, those are a challenge. Even if you have an effective pesticide in hand, you must spray scale insects at the precise time they are young and crawling, and that is a difficult thing to see with the naked eye.
Do you know the difference between sawfly larva and caterpillars? You should, because they are serious defoliators. One is an insect. One is a caterpillar, and there are entirely different ways to control them. Dish detergent isn't one of them.
In order to control a pest, you must identify it first. Then you need to find out what controls it. Sometimes you have to hand pick. If that isn't an option, there are treatments that are harmless to us but fatal to the pest. Use those first. If the problem persists, go to something more serious, maybe Bt for caterpillars, neem oil orhorticultural oil for chewing insects, a permethrin or a pyrethrin, maybe something containing imidacloprid. This is called IPM, integrated pest management, and it is widely considered the most responsible approach to controlling garden pests. You gradually haul out the bigger artillery when the simpler solutions don't work.
These is another option, too. Decide how much insect damage you can live with and in some cases, do nothing. Every garden pest is active for a period of time before it stops for the season, as it transitions to another part of its lifecycle. Sometimes you can just leave things alone. Believe it or not, many chewing insects don't kill your plants or trees and if you leave them be, they will be done and your tree will recover.
If anyone ever posts a one-stop simple solution to a very extensive class of problems, it is terrible advice. If anyone summarily disses all pesticides, I will guarantee that person knows absolutely nothing about how various pesticides work, how they break down in the environment and how they work to control pests.
You might as well be recommending an aspirin for every human illness or disease.
I don't understand the issue with manure. In KS, many people are using manure as a fertilizer and I'm guessing that situation isn't unique. Manure has been used for thousands of years, the Amish use it to grow beautiful produce that they sell at the farmer's markets without incident and even though people are aware of this, they prefer that to help avoid chemicals. Also, using chemicals that pollute the earth, air, wind and water is not like taking a multivitamin. How about this: CAP: Pesticide Costs Just read the warnings on the side of the bottles that you are using and decide by doing that. We had good luck using the soapy water, hand picking and diatomceous earth. Years ago I worked at the US Grain and Marketing Research Center in Manhattan, KS and I asked one of the researchers what worked best and he said "stooping on them." Agriculture in KS is big business and the water reports from the cities show those residual effects. In our current city, Atrazine, seems to be the issue but I didn't see anything in the water report about a problem with "multivitamins" in the ground water. It only makes sense to try all other alternatives before turning to artificial methods and how many times have we heard how safe something is and then years later, oops! Why do think people are willing to pay a premium for "organic"? I'm guessing smaller organic farms will eventually replace the mega operations as people's health continues to slip away. Be ahead of them and go organic now!
I have been gardening organically for about 45 years now and have to say my number one defense against bugs and fungus problems is creating REALLY HEALTHY soil. I also bring in benefcial insects. Partly from laziness and partly from research, I garden the no-till or low-till way and try to disturb the soil and all the healthy balances it will create as little as possible--sort of a modified Ruth Stout system.
I also collect seeds from the plants that have held up the best and created their own strong natural defenses.
BUT occasionally in years when things get put of balance with bugs or fungus, I will carefully and selectively (depending on bugs) use:
Pyrethrum (chrysanthemum flower extract) spray
Diatomaseous Earth
Hand picking bugs or jet spraying them with water
Beer and bull frogs for slugs
Tenting with row covers out of tulle material--this works great if you have the time and tulle is only about fifty cents a yard at most fabric stores.
I constantly experiment with companions that repell certain insects.
For fungus, I have not had luck with Serenade, and just take away mulch, or use pine needles with their natural fungicide properties, and mostly thin plants so they get good air circulation.
I agree with Tina that if you leave some attacked plants alone, they will eventually recover fine after the pest's cycle has changed. I do this every year with Japanese eggplants. Early on they get decimated by some kind of small beetle (can never see or find them) that eats a zillion tiny holes in leaves and you can't believe the plants will survive. By the end of July, they have totally revovered and I get tons of eggplants til frost.
I also agree with Tina that synthetic ferts carefully used wont damage your soil as long as you have healthy soil to begin with---with plenty of humus, organic matter, and eatables for the beneficial organisms. I experimented a few times with using miracle grow and another time with pelleted slow release in one of my raised beds. At the end of the growing season, I had just as many worms and organisms in that bed. But I believe you can't JUST depend on synthetic ferts to create healthy soil if you don't add in organic matter each year along with it. The beneficial organisms need organic matter to live on. I just prefer not using them as I love the feeling of building the soil naturally without the synthetics.
The one thing I have not succeeded with is gophers and moles! Need a good cat and appreciate any advice that has worked for you with these critters.
Last edited by mountainrose; 09-15-2013 at 10:10 AM..
For those of us who teach classes and answer hotlines, we know the first words are the ones that register and in this case your answer started with "for bugs" and then went on to describe your insecticidal mix. I read it the same way as Tina, it was a general bug spray that you then went to give examples of some of the uses you had tried. It was, at best, incomplete information considering the general question asked by the OP.
Thank you for your explanation regarding another's post. You have definitely made your point that you are an expert in horticulture, many times, in fact. Reading well and communicating with people are also important attributes, however.
I don't understand the issue with manure. In KS, many people are using manure as a fertilizer and I'm guessing that situation isn't unique. Manure has been used for thousands of years, the Amish use it to grow beautiful produce that they sell at the farmer's markets without incident and even though people are aware of this, they prefer that to help avoid chemicals. Also, using chemicals that pollute the earth, air, wind and water is not like taking a multivitamin. How about this: CAP: Pesticide Costs Just read the warnings on the side of the bottles that you are using and decide by doing that. We had good luck using the soapy water, hand picking and diatomceous earth. Years ago I worked at the US Grain and Marketing Research Center in Manhattan, KS and I asked one of the researchers what worked best and he said "stooping on them." Agriculture in KS is big business and the water reports from the cities show those residual effects. In our current city, Atrazine, seems to be the issue but I didn't see anything in the water report about a problem with "multivitamins" in the ground water. It only makes sense to try all other alternatives before turning to artificial methods and how many times have we heard how safe something is and then years later, oops! Why do think people are willing to pay a premium for "organic"? I'm guessing smaller organic farms will eventually replace the mega operations as people's health continues to slip away. Be ahead of them and go organic now!
My thoughts, exactly. But then, I was raised on a farm surrounded by all Amish farms, and grew up with Amish children. I still thank them today for what they taught me about the earth. On our last farm we utilized fertilizers and insect repellents for corn & soybeans. But, we never felt good about that. Many of our farmer friends are gone today, because of lung diseases. I vividly remember my husband and I dumping bags of fertilizer and treated seed in those old time drills, and the dust blowing back on us. Thanks for that great post!
Thank you Mountain Rose for a more balanced response with some explanations. There are too many hit and run posters here who cannot offer such a nice well balanced answer. Chemicals are part of life but too many people use the word "chemical" as a pejorative when they cannot actually define what the word means. Organic farmers and organic home gardeners all use purchased chemicals and or make their own on a regular basis and it has nothing to do with Monsanto (or Bayer or Miracle Gro or Scotts or DuPont and so on). Taking something as chemically manufactured as Palmolive (it and all the other detergents are not organic or natural) and spraying it on plants and saying it is not chemical use is hypocrisy at best. The original use of soaps, when they were made at home in the kitchen, was certainly far more likely to be organic but it is still a man made chemical reaction. All those organic only websites selling bottled elixirs are selling chemicals too, just ones that have been concentrated from a different source, and not always as safe and helpful as they are touted to be.
To answer the OP now that things have been a little clarified. Mountain Rose is absolutely right about good soil, and covered much of what Tina also said. I don't want to add much to that but I want to touch on all the other factors in actual farming practices.
Many people seem to be under that strange impression that you can stick seeds in the ground and walk away only to come back in a few months to a bumper crop of 'whatever' to gather. You may get a crop to harvest if the rain was frequent enough and the local soil had enough mineral content in the right combinations for that crop and if there were enough "good bugs" to overcome the bad and you didn't have conditions that would encourage viruses, fungi and bacteria to grow. The second and third year you attempt to "farm" this way would result in more of your crop failing from pests and general plant ill health. Soil depletion is one very big reason but so are plant disease and pests This is why so many of the farms in former rainforest areas fail and leave the area barren and useless for generations to come. Without the good soil the plants cannot begin to resit the all the other problems.
A good farmer has to understand soil conditions, seed quality and the vast array of pests and disease his crop may encounter and what he can do to make the best harvest he can get. After all his or her income depends on it, as does his family. Over the years many of the agricultural colleges and universities have done pretty intense research to discover why something fails, or conversely why some things do really well. It can be with how well the plants can resist disease (those disease resistant hybrids you see for sale as seed packets) or what natural extract can be refined and concentrated to ward of bugs or specific diseases, or what combinations of minerals can be put together in a fertilizer to make up for soil that is deficient or has been depleted.
Hybridized plants are often the result of finding a handful of a crop does better than the rest of the field. Seeds from these plants are saved and grown the following year, and once again those that seem to resist a common pest or disease have seeds saved and are grown again. Sometimes artificial pollination is used to get crosses between more resistant plants to make the strongest group yet. Eventually these become the varieties sold as seed for crops. More recently scientists have found ways to include pest resistant genes from one kind of plant and include it in the genes of another to give it the same "immunity." These are the more controversial GMO's. Many people do not understand that not all hybrids are GMO and will unnecessarily avoid them all out of misplaced fear.
Fertilizers come in many forms and are needed anywhere where crops are grown more than a few times in a row. Many farms starting out with very fertile soil can and do manage to keep the good conditions with simple additions of composted plant materials and manure. Not every farm can do this and the more intensely the farm is used the harder it is to keep soil conditions healthy for good crops every year. There are plenty of organic source fertilizers available for those that don't have a ready source of manure and composted materials. The "chemical" fertilizers often offer a boost to specific minerals that have been lost and are just as "natural" as vitamin pills manufactured in the chemistry labs of all the vitamin makers. You can avoid them or use them I don't make judgements but am offering facts.
There are no "good" bugs that all be themselves enable a farmer to grow a crop. Whatever you saw on TV was taken out of context. Many people who want to have some organic garden help will order lady bugs, praying mantis and some wasps to eat mites, aphids, and some caterpillars. These are natural predators to only some of the pests that feed on our plants and crops. They are helpful but in a large farm they only offer some assistance. A corn field that is hundreds of acres will need more help than that but sometime they work well in a small garden plot. There are "good" nematodes and bacteria that also will target "bad" bugs that can be purchased. None are perfect and many will disappear by the time the next growing season comes and you will have to buy them again.
Organic sprays for pests and disease are usually concentrated forms of materials gardeners have found a little more helpful than doing nothing. Some are now concentrated and sold as organic insecticides or pesticides. One big example is Pyrethrum, which is a very toxic chemical and it can be used as an organic pesticide. It is a concentrate made from a form of chrysanthemum. It has a specific chemical formula. It is toxic to many insects, including beneficials like bees and is also toxic to aquatic animals. It is however called "organic" because it was originally made from plants. Many home gardeners and organic farmers use it freely thinking it is organic and therefore safe. There have been enough medical reports of nausea, vomiting and seizures to know that it isn't entirely non toxic to mammals including humans.
Very often people in home gardens will find that after a year or two, maybe as many as three that their plants don't do well because more of them are getting diseases. Plants from the same "family" can all become sick with the same disease, just as you and your family can all come down with the same virus or bacteria caused disease. Tomatoes are the big example. People would get a early and late blights all the time and end up with very few tomatoes. Often this was overcome with moving crops around on the property and not planting the same thing in the same place. Sometimes you can alternate with something from a different "family" (for example cabbages) so that the disease doesn't have a place to stay. This is far harder for a farmer to accomplish but many do use various versions of crop rotation for this and other reasons. It doesn't prevent the disease but it helps to make it happen a little less.
If you are truly interested in farming, not backyard gardening, I'm afraid trying to grow anything without "chemicals" of some kind, fertilizer (this includes manure and compost) and whatever else you want to avoid is probably not going to succeed for any length of time without a lot of work on your part. You will have to expect less than perfect looking crops and some years reduced to no results for your work.
Thank you for your explanation regarding another's post. You have definitely made your point that you are an expert in horticulture, many times, in fact. Reading well and communicating with people are also important attributes, however.
I have no interest in pissing contests with you but that seems to be your intent. You win, you can **** farther. I'll keep my education to myself and you can be the great horticultural expert. It really adds nothing to the topic and the OP still does not have any answers from you.
I have no interest in pissing contests with you but that seems to be your intent. You win, you can **** farther. I'll keep my education to myself and you can be the great horticultural expert. It really adds nothing to the topic and the OP still does not have any answers from you.
Example: Communication skills, or the lack thereof, always show through.
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