Posted on 07/29/2008 10:34:55 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
FRESNO, California (AP) -- Sunscreen for fruits and vegetables? It's already being tested in Australia and Chile.
Just like people damage their skin in the sun, produce can also get nasty burns. That's why farmers are increasingly applying sunscreen to their crops to prevent skin blistering, heat stress and blemishes.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
More chemicals in our food supply. O goodie.
Weekly Gardenining ping. Well kinda weekly.
Ping of interest to the Gardeners!!!!!!!!
As you gardeners know, if water is on plant leaves and the sun comes out, the leaves can get damaged. So this does make sense. However, how big agri-business would do this is of concern because we don’t need more chemicals.
Getting great tomatoes and cucumbers from my gardening pots. Beats anything from the supermarkets.
My thoughts exactly.
I guess we could get little umbrellas and use those instead of sunscreen. I lost a few cucumbers to sunburn this summer.
Coulda used some veggie-screen the last couple of weeks. Due to extreme heat, watermelons all got scalded. Literally cooked them in the fields. :( The ones we managed to get before were terrific!
"What are we DOING to our CHILDREN?!?!?!"
"What are we DOING to our VEGATABLES?!?!?"
My biggest challenge this year is keeping pests away from my cukes, cabbage & eggplant!
“I’m not an expert on anything, but I’m always interested in trying anything...”
Don’t EVEN get me started on this nonsense. I’m going out to pick beans; grown in good old Wisconsin earth and old-fashioned composted cow shit, LOL!
“My biggest challenge this year is keeping pests away from my cukes, cabbage & eggplant!”
Horning in here, because, well, it’s my job! :)
You can use Rotenone Dust on those veggies. It’s completely organic, and kills ‘em dead. It’s so safe, you can use it on your pets (and kids!) as a flea and tick preventative and you can also use it on Raspberries to kill the Japanese Beetles, if you’re so blessed.
http://www.biconet.com/botanicals/roi.html
It’s not allowed for use in CA where the REAL EnviroWackos reside, but it is safe for the rest of us that live in the Real World. ;)
(I wouldn’t steer you wrong. I sell TONS of it each season with no complaints that it doesn’t do the job; and believe me, my customers are religious about complaining about everything, LOL!)
Another thing you can do, if you really want to be “organic” is to make your yard a wonderful eco-system. It will take a number of years, but the idea is to promote birds in your yard as much as possible, and also draw in the Good Bugs that will do the dirty work for you.
Shady nooks for bird feeders with lots of cover (Dogwood is good, as are spruce trees and a few others, if you’re interested) and fresh water in a birdbath each day.
A few dead trees on your property aren’t a bad thing. Woodpeckers will live there and eat GOBS of bugs for you.
Cool, shady spots with “low” water (old bird bath tops on the ground, even an old pie pan or an old casserole dish buried at ground level) will fill your yard with toads; AWESOME lethal bug hunters.
A row of my (not patented...yet!) “Beneficial Bug Mix” planted in the garden brings in the Good Bugs that eat the Bad Bugs:
Fennel
Orange Cosmos
Dill
Blue Bachelor Buttons
Cilantro
Borage
Let everything flower and go to seed and you only have to plant the row once in Zone 4/5 or warmer.
It works. What can I tell ya? I’ve spent a dozen years improving the “environment” on my 2 acres and I NEVER have any bug problems. Never a single bug bite out of a vegetable, or a leaf.
Isn’t Rotenone highly toxic to fish? For example, I have a pond in my backyard and any pesticide that is used in the area may very well end up in the pond due to rainfall and runoff. Since you have much experience with Rotenone, do you know what the label states with regard to fish or bodies of water in the area of use?
We would love to give the world tasty produce but the world wants beauty. Check out the produce in Wal-Mart, they set the standards, it doesn’t matter how it tastes, only how it looks.
The trick is to use a factor high enough to prevent sunburn but low enough to keep the plant from starvin’. Or somethin’.
Well, yes, Rotenone is used in the farm-fishing industry to ‘weed out’ the undesirables, but the average home gardener doesn’t have water on their land and isn’t using Rotenone anywhere near water. Runoff isn’t a problem, but might be if someone is using it in massive quantities on an entire field of cabbages next to a creek, I’d imagine. Highly unlikely, as a large-scale farmer would use something MUCH more toxic. Ugh.
The stuff becomes inert after a short time (as does Round-up) so runoff for the average consumer that sprinkles a cup or so on a row of cabbages isn’t a grave concern. The Eco-Nuts I work with swear by the stuff, and they’re paranoid about EVERYTHING from aluminum in under-arm deodorant (therefor they don’t use it) to being convinced that drinking out of a plastic water bottle is going to kill them instantly. *Rolleyes*
Why would you have runoff from your garden going toward your fish pond in the first place? Was it the only place to site your pond or garden? If so, don’t use any insecticides and just plant more crops because the bugs are going to take a percentage of them until you have your eco-system up to snuff...and having a pond with lots of frogs around to eat bugs is a good thing. :)
The pond covers approximately 3.5 acres and was created 35 years ago by damming up the area that was the natural drain for our homesite, as well as another 100 acres or so just north of the house. If there is a good rain, not uncommon here in Louisiana, it is very likely that water from just about anywhere on the homesite will end up in the pond. As the pond provides recreation as well as a great deal of food for us, we are hyper-aware of what may enter the water.
The garden is where it is for several reasons: (1) it is one of the only parts of the yard that is not shaded by huge trees, many much older than you and I; (2) it is the best soil on the homesite, we believe because for decades it was the site of the cow yard and barn; and (3) with 150 feet of hose I have access to the water faucet at the garden shed.
As always, you have provided me with information that I did not have ... which is that after a time Rotenone becomes inert. Thank you. I will do some further reading on this product to determine if it will be useful to my yard and garden area in limited amounts.
The eco-nuts you work with would love the stories of my late FIL who, back during the early part of the 20th century, applied DDT or some such poison to cotton barehanded from a croaker sack with no mask, while riding a mule. They might be interested to know that he lived to be 98.5 years old ... 97 of those years in excellent health. ;-)
Frogs??? Do not even go there please! We have so many of those creatures that the nightime hours are deafening with their songs. And they don't do nearly enough bug eating, being as how Louisiana has to be the bug capitol of the entire world. Well, maybe some hellhole in Africa or Asia has more, but I seriously doubt that.
I concur on the bug population. Not much bothers me, but I'm not crazy about big bugs.
It's nearly grasshopper time up here; I absolutely HATE walking the dogs down the lane while grasshoppers jump on me, but it's good exercise because it makes me walk really, really fast! :)
Another note on Rotenone: It's the only insecticide that can be used on Raspberry canes. It's the only thing we've found that kills the Japanese Beetles up here this time of year. You can use it up until the day you pick, it's that safe for human consumption.
Interesting, thanks for the alert.
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