© 2000 Wendy Dager

With the recent banning of Dursban, the trade name of a pesticide produced by a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Corp., nearly all residential customers will have to seek other forms of insect eradication. The Environmental Protection Agency also announced that there will be stricter regulations for Dursban's agricultural use as well.

Products containing Dursban, the most widely used insecticide in the United States, will not be pulled from shelves, but will be allowed to be sold until stockpiles are depleted.

Risky Business

15 to 24 million pounds of Dursban are applied each year, with between 2 and 4 million used by gardeners. Another 4 to 7 million pounds are used for pest control in, under, and around homes, schools, public housing and other public places. For agricultural use the product is known as Lorsban, and is applied most often to crops of corn, cotton, apples, alfalfa, and oranges.

Environmental groups that supported termination of the chemicals use called the limitations a step in the right direction, but are seeking the permanent elimination of Dursban, which is designed to kill insects by disrupting their brains and nervous systems. Environmentalists say that the organophosphates in Dursban are meant to inhibit the function of cholinesterase, a key enzyme in the insect's nervous system, but also, frighteningly, affect humans in the same manner. Youngsters are especially vulnerable to its effects, with 25,000 of the 63,000 reports made to U.S. poison control centers from 1993-1996 involving children. Studies have shown that overexposure to Dursban can cause dizziness, nausea, paralysis and death.

Fighting the Good Fight

On the heels of the Dursban ban comes the State of California's new rules governing the use of farm fumigant methyl bromide. The changes aren't as sweeping as that of Dursban's, but are in line with proposals the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration are trying to implement via a program they established in 1993 called Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Initially begun as a commitment to supervise pest control over 75 percent of the nations crop acreage, IPM has come under fire by entomologists and others for its unclear parameters.

Gasp! Choke!

Wheeze!

A federal policy that promotes IPM without a proper understanding of IPM is doomed to failure.

But Will It Work?

The USDA and the EPA have struggled to come up with a workable definition of IPM and an easy way for those in the agriculture industry to get it going. Problem is, for a farmer to qualify under the IPM's current guidelines of prevention, avoidance, monitoring, and suppression (PAMS), he has to use at least three PAMS tactics. According to Lester E. Ehler and Dale G. Bottrell, professors of entomology, the major problem with the PAMS approach is that it does not recognize the concept of integration or compatibility among pest management tactics as was envisioned by the founders of IPM.

According to the professors, a federal policy that promotes IPM without a proper understanding of IPM is doomed to failure.

Going Buggy

This is not a comforting thought, particularly for the farmers who are fighting veritable plagues of pests.

Among the most destructive creepy crawlies currently featured in agricultural news headlines is the olive fruit fly, which was recently discovered in Tulare County, California. The single female fly was bad news for olive growers already facing hard times. The olive fruit fly is the most serious olive pest, producing a larvae that tunnels throughout the olive, causing premature fruit drop and a reduction in yield. Olive fruit flies were also found in Bakersfield and Reedley. If more are found, a large-scale eradication program will have to be implemented.

The glassy-winged sharpshooter is another pest that may pose a devastating threat California, particularly to vineyards.

The moisture-sucking, disease-spreading sharpshooter has been found in central and northern California and is so feared that Congress actually passed a farm bill which includes $7.1 million toward fighting the pest.

Fight Fire With Fire

The good news in the case of the sharpshooter is that there might be an ecologically sound alternative to typical pest eradication. A parasitic Mexican wasp, now under quarantine at a university, may be used in California vineyards this summer.

Wasps arent the only natural enemies used as a biological pest control. Tiny lizards with huge appetites were recently employed to kill off the giant flying cockroaches that wreak havoc at San Franciscos historic Conservancy of Flowers.

Many growers in-the-know have been using such alternative tactics as mites, lady beetles, green lacewings, minute pirate bugs, assassin bugs, and hover flies to safely fight pests.

For customers of Albright Seed, A Division of S&S Seeds, Paul Albright recommends the use of our own Insecta-Flora on orchards and vineyards.

Insecta-Flora creates a natural insectory that attracts and supports the beneficials and provides an alternate target for crop destroyers, drawing them into insect ambush. In addition, our new and improved Insecta-Flora now has Gopher-Stopper to discourage gophers from attacking cover crops as well as cash crops such as orchards and vineyards. This product is available in pound -and-a-quarter bags that will cover 5,000 square feet. Larger quantities can be special ordered, and Albright Seed will also create site-specific custom blends to meet any cover crop need to help you recruit your very own insect army.

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