I was thinking of buying this insecticide called bioadvanced fruit, citrus and vegetable insect control which has an active ingredient called Imidacloprid. This insecticide is systemic and I was wondering if it is safe to apply this on a tree that will eventually fruit.
It’s probably not going to harm you if you follow the instructions,on the product, but it’s really bad for bees according to these links. It’s banned in EU and restricted in some US States.
https://growingfruit.org/t/imidacloprid-drench-for-fruit-trees
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Safety with insecticides is relative. Neonicotinoids are probably safer to use than organophosphates.
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I will not use any neonicotanoid type products in my yard and orchard. Or buying any plants that the nursery has used neonictanoid products with their growing. These stay around for a long time in the soil and get sucked up by the roots. Plus the killing of bee or other bee type insects that help will pollination. There is a huge battle over these neonic type products. I believe a lot of European countries have banned their use as well. They have , or thought to be one of the main causes of bee colony collapse over there.
Not trying to cause a big fuss here but just letting you know about it being a neonicotanoid class product. You can do with this information what you will. Just read up on these fruit spray ingredients before using them.
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Incorrect, they have banned them in seed coatings only – same as here in the U.S. (for good reason in my opinion).
Okay, thanks for the correction. Maybe I was incorrect about what the articles were about but I thought it was about banning fruit tree sprays with the neonic products.
I read bits and pieces here and there so I am not fully up to speed with these things. Once I knew I was not going to be using those products I stopped reading about them.
I know the few articles I read a while back about this the people were all standing in front of fruit orchards and their signs said things about saving the bees ( with translations of the sites).
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The registration for imidacloprid in Europe expired in 2020, and the final grace period in 2022.
Here is the official database of pesticide active substances in Europe
here is for imidacloprid
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I find this answer a bit misleading.
Is it safe for humans? Probably if applied correctly.
Is it safe for (beneficial, like bees) insects? highly likely not
you could say the same about the “pesticide faithful being misled by big Ag”
Lets keep pointless speculation out of it. Or at least mention it’s your opinion.
you are incorrect here.
imidacloprid has been banned for various uses by various EU countries since 2013.
Since 2018 it has been banned for all outdoor use. (stil allowed for limited use in closed greenhouses)
Source:
please, lets focus on facts backed by sources and leave opinion/speculation out of it.
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Considering this, is there any systemic insecticides that may be safer for killing aphids as soap didn’t work as well as I thought it would.
I see. And which one of us has the pesticide advisors license? I take a comprehensive exam every two years.
By EU consumers, certainly. Can’t trust them to follow directions.
This thread has taken on the flavor of a religious argument. I’m done with it.
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What other insecticide do you use?
Sometimes in environmental issues it is important to consider two things, relative productivity of acreage used for farming, and scale of the impact itself.
We never seem to look at the agricultural issue holistically-, any agriculture has huge environmental impacts- damaging to many species and beneficial to a few, obviously including humans. If a pesticide has unique abilities to increase productivity, that should be put on the plus side of environmental impacts because it ultimately leaves more land to wilderness and the richer biodiversity that exists there.
For home growers it is important to develop methods that assure productivity of your trees and when you succeed in turning what might otherwise be mowed turf into sources of human food you are freeing up land elsewhere on the planet that would otherwise be used for that purpose. As far as any affect of a short term spray schedule of any legal pesticide in a home orchard, it is almost egoistical to imagine that your puny efforts have any real affect on any species anywhere beyond the range of your yard and any insects you kill will rapidly be replaced if there is food to be had for them. Home orchards tend to have huge buffer zones between them and other sprayed areas so outside populations will quickly respond to any vacuum of insect consumers for the food available on your land, bees or stinkbugs. Also fungus.
As far as your risks of using any legal pesticide, here is a follow up of a years long study of the relative health of 70,000 applicators and their wives compared to that of other people in their state. These applicators often lived lives where they were immersed in agricultural pesticides for entire seasons, pulling mist sprayers with open tractors. As the study shows, they live much longer and healthier lives than the people of the state that get a tiny fraction of this kind of exposure. Scroll to the chart- expected illnesses and mortality means the average for the state. Follow information and not fads. Less poison is always better… as long as it doesn’t mean less food. We can’t grow all of our food in areas without rainfall during the growing season and that’s where most organic fruit comes from.
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I should add that pesticide applicators and their wives do suffer certain cancers and other illnesses at higher rates than the general population in their states but that the overall statistical affects of the risks of exposure are far exceeded by the positive effects of the lifestyles of farmers with probably exercise being a primary factor. Perhaps relative access to vitamin D creating sunshine as well.
My take is that the risk of pesticide exposure is highly exaggerated by the general public, but data is always open to different interpretations. .
Also, I have clients that get decent productivity of a range of fruits using Surround instead of poisons to help control insect damage. However, it is also common for them to try to go organic and then return to a limited synthetic program because of several advantages, including overall productivity, especially of stone fruit. Brown rot is a bitch here. Applying Surround instead of synthetics is also much more labor intensive.
Ackshually, you are feeding the squirrels.
This!
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Alright, before I choice this specific chemical does anyone know the safest most effective aphid control (not soap or neem) or is Imidacloprid the best one?
I think members should know that for most every fruit pest there lies a solution. I would be out of business if I let squirrels run off with the lion’s share of my customers fruit… and believe me, grey squirrels are everywhere I work, periodically at epidemic levels.
It’s hard to protect dwarf fruit trees from squirrels, unless you train them way up.
What are you protecting from aphids? If you are concerned about poisoning bees, maybe run with a pyrethroid and spray early in the morning.
Or if you want something natural, perhaps this works for aphids… the above is labeled for them but I didn’t search up the label for this product. https://www.amazon.com/Southern-Ag-10401-Pyrethrin-Concentrate/dp/B00VIALGTA/ref=asc_df_B00VIALGTA?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80608063553907&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584207589798375&psc=1
Pyrethroids aren’t very poisonous for mammals and the synthetic ones are quite persistent. I mean pyrethroids are persistent and organic pyrethrin not so much.
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