Apples without pesticides

General Fruit Growing
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I don’t know the specifics of the study so can’t comment on how it was done and what precautions were taken to avoid skewing the data one way or another. Are you saying that you think that some farmers who were not very healthy or already had cancer declined participation to skew the results? That’s possible I guess but it’s also very possible that the study designers used prior history of cancer as part of the exclusion criteria so that may not be an issue at all. As to healthy farmers being motivated to participate to disprove the scientists, otherwise good health, unfortunately, isn’t a great predictor of whether someone will get cancer.

I would suggest thinking about it from another angle though with regard to potential bias. What population has the highest levels of exposure to chemicals used as pesticides? It’s possible that some farmers might view a negative result as affecting their livelihood. On the other hand, farmers might be the MOST interested in accurate results since they’re likely the ones most affected if the pesticides they use are causing cancer.

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There are two lists of carcinogens that are worth noting:
IARC
NTP

The IARC breaks down carcinogens in this manner:
Group 1 Carcinogenic to humans 119 agents
Group 2A Probably carcinogenic to humans 81
Group 2B Possibly carcinogenic to humans 292
Group 3 Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans 505
Group 4 Probably not carcinogenic to humans 1

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Cancer is caused by changes in a cell’s DNA – its genetic “blueprint.” Some of these changes may be inherited from our parents. Others may be caused by outside exposures, which are often referred to as environmental factors.

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everyone is free to do whatever he/she wants to do or would like to say. Speaking for myself, i have qualms about everything–plastics, emissions, pharmaceuticals, etc. and try to avoid or minimize exposure to all of them. Pesticides are biological agents that are designed to kill biologic entities. Placing apples in plastic bags probably have some toxic effects, but if we grind up plastic and try to ‘overdose’ on it, it won’t be as fatal as overdosing on pesticides or tylenol. And speaking of tylenol, one cannot ascertain that the doc who prescribed it has never made, or never will, make a mistake, especially if the dose is weight-based, say, for your child. Everybody makes mistakes. Maybe cancer was a negative among grown-up farmers(and good for them), but life–and death-- are not influenced exclusively by prsence or absence of cancer. There are other yet unknown stuff that are worrisome, like long-term effects/syndromes on children and pregnant women that can only be retroactively correlated with after the effects or syndromes manifest. Much like thalidomide was ok for pregnant women, but only until armless and footless babies were born did they ban it. Nobody knew how it caused it, but they banned it anyway, and the exact mechanism took ~40 years to be elucidated on, long after the damage has been done. Maybe many of us have a fair grasp of how pesticides kill pests or humans(if overdosed), but i don’t think anyone has an inkling about their long-term effects in sublethal doses.
Milder insidious syndromes that don’t affect anyone’s appearance, such as autism, adhd, mental retardation, type 2 diabetes, etc are even more difficult to correlate, and the prevalence of these syndromes are increasing . Every time a new pesticide/medication is approved by epa/fda, there is no blanket waiver for that approval and may be rescinded at a later time with retroactive studies-- after the damage is done.

it is always safer to be a doubter, or at least to be in guarded mode, than to trust every word said by some gov’t entity/or someone projecting cocksure expertise telling you “it is completely safe, with zero or minor side-effects”.

lastly, this thread was started by folks who would like to try growing apples without pesticides, can’t we at least continue hearing from them?

it is true that fruit-farming in many regions in this country(plus many developing countries), can’t be done profitably without pesticides, and very wrong and inconsiderate to disparage them for doing so, but we should at least be happy for folks who are successful.

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No one in this thread has done so.

I second that motion.

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if that’s the case, and i hope it is the case, then it is an indirect admission that pesticide-treated fruits are not to be taken lightly.
and more reason to celebrate those who grow apples without pesticides

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That’s an over-generalization. It depends entirely on the pesticide substance.

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like i said, i am a doubter.
but don’t get me wrong, as i do eat pesticide treated fruits even though not as much as i used to. I used to consider them as mundane foodstuff but now no more. If apples or peaches, i wash them first and then peel and discard the skin. If they are homegrown then i will munch them straight from our trees, skin and all :slight_smile:

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@jujubemulberry your latest post was truly outstanding. I just can’t agree with the above statement. You have to train your eyes to look for what folks are doing in areas with heavy pest pressure. There’s a fair amount of data to sift through, but if it is important to someone they can find solutions. IMHO, it’s much better to sift through that data than try and parse dangers and/or map ingredients on a label to known carcinogen lists.

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I don’t think anyone is upset people choose to grow fruit without pesticides. I’m genuinely happy if it works out for them.

I think the problem comes in when some true believers seem to think if they did it, anyone can.

I’ve yet to see anyone in the Deep South claim they have had good results with a no-spray orchard, but I’d certainly be the first to listen to their techniques if they’ve been having sustained success.

So wanting to minimize pesticide exposure = good. Generalizing your experience = not good.

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i think i know exactly where you are going, and totally understand. But at this point, would rather give pesticide users the benefit of the doubt, because quite certain that they, too, are wishing they never have to undergo wearing protective suits/masks, filing for pesticide applicator red tape, and spending on expensive pesticides. Having to use pesticides is a ball and chain in many ways. One of the posts have come across say that hopefully robots will have to do the calculations, mixing, and spraying someday!

at any rate, i have never been a fruit-grower in areas with more pest/disease pressures higher than in my area, so i can’t really speak for them. Even where am at, it is difficult to grow conventional fruit trees without being paranoid about sudden death syndromes/plagues, etc.

in rapidly industrializing countries, say, china, india, southeast asian or even african nations, the use of conventional pesticides is perhaps the most cost-effective way of feeding people. It woud be difficult to feed a rapidly increasing number of workers with pesticide-free food, especially if by the billions. Even we americans benefited immensely from this in the past, and many of us are still benefiting… Pesticide-treated fruits/vegies are still the cheapest for many workers, and that’s primarily why.

in usa, california is easily the place to grow pesticide-free food, but even some of the posters here who grow theirs there still have to use some.

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The Canadian Gov did a similar study with similar results. You are really stretching logic to create an answer you want, IMO. I can’t imagine even a single farmer so dedicated to pesticides that they would hide cancer to make poisons look good. That’s just absolutely crazy to me. Any sane person would want whatever gave them cancer to be known even if they believed in using pesticides, they would want to know of ones especially dangerous. But maybe pesticides make people crazy and so they hide their cancer.:wink:

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It was the unnecessary comment steering people to google cancer and pesticides that inspired me to bring up this study again. Apples without pesticides is certainly the topic, but the reason a lot of people avoid using pesticides is because they fear they are dangerous. My feeling is if people are satisfied with the results they get growing fruit without pesticides, that is the best of all possibilities, but if chemical intervention is required to get what you are growing fruit for you shouldn’t let that damage the joy of growing fruit- just follow the precautions on the labels of materials you use. .

Also, people who choose to grow fruit organically should respect people who choose to go a different route and vice-versa.

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That’s because you mis-understand the meaning of “pesticide”. By law, it is defined by use. If you use water to drown ants, water is the pesticide. If you use beer to kill snails, then beer is the pesticide. And in California if you purposely do either of these things on a scope of 0.1 acre or greater at a registered pesticide use site (including organic ones) then the law requires the applicator to report the usage.

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I’m a lot more worried about death or disability caused by drunk drivers or folks driving while texting than I am about eating apples with pesticides.

I do take basic precautions. I don’t drive a car when intoxicated or text when I drive and I wash my fruit before I eat it.

We live in a world where we are surrounded by lots of potentially harmful chemicals. Scientific knowledge changes over time and sometimes things we are told are safe turn out to be unsafe. Might be the plastic in the water bottles we use or even the public water we drink that is unsafe. Could be the pharmaceutical prescribed by our doctor or thousands or other products or objects we come into contact with everyday that are dangerous.

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apparently you misunderstood what i meant by pesticide, so to make things clear, what i meant were malathion, parathion, etc. the heavy hitters. And not just here in usa, but elsewhere. And if there may be heavy-hitting organic pesticides, then am including those too.
lastly, i may be a doubter, but i am ok with people using water to drown ants, or beer bait to kill snails, or a hammer to kill both :wink:

ok now, back to topic.

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i actually didn’t see anything wrong with that, since any other study is worth of consideration, including that one study that you brought up.
ultimately it is the free will to decide what’s best and what’s safest for one’s self/family.

yes, totally agree.

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I have an issue with Malathion being sold to consumers to control mediterranean fruit fly et al on apples. It’s not in pesticide.org’s bad actor list, but I have a problem with unregulated use. Here’s the Bonide Malathion 50% EC data sheet from Pesticide.org.

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i agree. A kid who enjoys gardening could buy it from walmart and over-zealously nuke his fruit trees/vegies(and inadvertently, himself) unbeknownst to parents, and clueless parents might not think much of it even if they were aware, since it was an ‘over-the-counter’ thing from walmart.

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so…a little pissed with the weather here, and a lot pissed with myself, for not planning better:

I had posted earlier in the winter/later in the fall about a few promising apples in the dog park near my place. well last week I went out to try tagging them but it was way too cold…almost all apples look the same frozen solid and then thawed and frozen again…

I bought a couple colors of flagging tape, and intend to get out, mark trees w/ apples still on them in one color, then next fall flag trees that had “good” apples again in Sept/Oct., and look at what I have at the end both in terms of apples that had minimal pest damage and also “late droppers” in particular, for deer foodplots and the like, and do my harvesting next year, but deeply pissed I missed a chance to mark and harvest the 2 apples we found this year, this year…