pesticides

A._Badger

colt wrote: »

Could'nt agree more

I raised the same orginal question on our site today and 90% of plot holders think the EU have alot to answer. The trouble is with so many being removed people have started using pesticides that are mainly for industrial use, but are being used by the allotment holder. This in my opinion is causing more problems than the banned chemicals.

It is - and just wait until householders find the hippies have banned ordinary domestic chemicals, too! People will start resorting to all sorts of ways to clean drains. After all - it isn't difficult to make lye...

No doubt some (misguided) people are already considering Victorian methods like the (absolutely lethal) boiling-up of cigarette ends to make a nicotine spray. Get that one wrong and you are dead!

Lotus-eater

colt wrote: »

The trouble is with so many being removed people have started using pesticides that are mainly for industrial use, but are being used by the allotment holder. This in my opinion is causing more problems than the banned chemicals.

What are they using and for what?

peter_the_piper

fedup100pc wrote: »

I’m afraid it isn't be possible for an increase in pests being down to the banning or certain pesticides. This is because the number of pests in the world would be zillions higher than the mere handful that gardeners and farmers kill. The banning of certain pesticides wouldn’t even cause a minor blip in the big picture of things.

Even natural predators can’t put a minor dent in the number of pests out there. I have a Beech hedge in my garden and every year the foliage is absolutely covered in whitefly and the hornets and wasps can’t eat a tiny fraction of them there is that many. And that is just my one hedge.

I mainly interested in greenhouses and chemicals/predators do make a sigificant dent in the bug population. Mainly I use predatators out of sheer laziness, you generally only have to apply once, and although dearer do save labour costs. However its nice to have a knockdown chemical available if an infestation occurs unnoticed or if a natural killer is not available. Weedkillers, outside, are essential and would be a disaster if the main constituents were banned. You can be sure our european collegues would find a way around the regs as ornamentals are not tested for residuals.

Lotus-eater

fedup100pc wrote: »

I’m afraid it isn't be possible for an increase in pests being down to the banning or certain pesticides. This is because the number of pests in the world would be zillions higher than the mere handful that gardeners and farmers kill. The banning of certain pesticides wouldn’t even cause a minor blip in the big picture of things.

Even natural predators can’t put a minor dent in the number of pests out there. I have a Beech hedge in my garden and every year the foliage is absolutely covered in whitefly and the hornets and wasps can’t eat a tiny fraction of them there is that many. And that is just my one hedge.

I'm not sure about that and would seek an experts opinion before making any statement.
But, we know that birds populations have plummeted, something is doing it, if you don't have the pests there, then you can't have the predators either.
If you don't have the predators and you cut down on the amount of chemical control, the pests get out of control, until the natural balance reasserts itself.
Nature is a balance, if you upset that balance, you can expect things to change. Growing all the same types of crops in one place is also upsetting that balance, that's why we have to do something to protect our crops, people that get into organic gardening and expect they can just leave everything and nature will sort it out, have a big shock coming.
But.... and this is the key to me, you nudge a bit here, a bit there, you take preventative measures (like nets) where needed, if the worst happens you spray with something, but not until you need to.
Way too many people spray indiscriminately when they don't need to.

You can't say "banning all these chemicals is wrong" and you also can't say it's right, you have to look at each one individually and at the reasons they are being banned.

colt

What are they using and for what?

I think one that some are using is Equity not too sure on the others,will try and find out.