Here is my dilemma. I lost my entire cherry crop last year to brown rot. I had to go out of town last week and needed to spray for BR due to the forecast rain coming in this week (where the brown rot took over in the conditions last year). I used the Bonide “Fruit Tree and Plant Guard” for the BR control. The label (is the law) indicates “do not spray within 14 days of harvest” for cherries. Well, post spray we have had 4 days of very wet weather, with a couple days of heat and - go figure, the cherries are ready for harvest - they are starting to split and the birds are flocking! I am 8 days post-spray. What are my implications harvesting early, especially considering all the rain. I clearly want to be safe, but I fear I will lose everything (again) if I wait 6 more days. There is always next year. Any thoughts are welcome.
You could net them and wait it out. Fish sein anything will work. You could cover the entire tree in shade cloth to slow down ripening. Air flow could be a problemwith the shade cloth idea.
Next season join a group purchase of Indar and you can eat the cherries without much worry, even the next day. However, it will likely protect against rot if you spray 14 days before harvest. There are also a couple of products in smaller batches that should work- an all purpose pesticide is a very blunt instrument. Here’s what I got in a couple of seconds from CHAT. Propiconazole probably also has not more than a 24 hr. PHI.
|Indar 2F (commercial, but sometimes available retail)|Fenbuconazole|Excellent|Systemic, curative and protective. Among the best brown rot fungicides. Restricted in some states.|
|Monterey Fungi-Fighter|Propiconazole|Good|Systemic. Labeled for stone fruits. Not organic. Similar to Indar in action.|
|Bonide Infuse (Lawn & Garden, some versions)|Propiconazole|Good|
I you decide to break the law, most of the insecticide should wash off and it has very low mammalian toxicity. Guidelines and labels lean on the highly conservative side. One time exposure shouldn’t be much of an issue if you wash the fruit.
Of course, I’m not really qualified to assert that last paragraph, but that’s how I think about it.
CHAT offers better advice than I do off the cuff. Better follow this one. You shouldn’t have sprayed your cherries with this formula to begin with, according to CHAT. Is CHAT correct that it isn’t labeled for cherries?
If someone sprayed Bonide Fruit Tree and Plant Guard on cherries too close to harvest and then consumed the fruit—even after washing—it presents a nontrivial risk due to the chemical residues from its active ingredients:
Active Ingredients and Their Risks
- Lambda-cyhalothrin (pyrethroid insecticide)
- Not labeled for use on cherries at all (in this product)
- Even where it is allowed (e.g., on apples), it typically carries a 14-day pre-harvest interval (PHI)
- Health risks: neurotoxic at high exposure; can cause tingling, dizziness, or allergic reactions.
- Very poorly removed by washing — binds tightly to waxy skins.
- Pyraclostrobin and Boscalid (strobilurin + SDHI fungicides)
- These are labeled for use on cherries, but the PHI is typically 0 to 7 days, depending on the formulation.
- Both degrade slowly and are partially removed by washing, but still persist in measurable residues.
- Health risks: Low acute toxicity, but both are under investigation for long-term endocrine and liver effects in chronic high-dose studies.
What “Too Close” Means in This Context
If the fruit was sprayed:
- Within 1–3 days of harvest, and
- Especially if the spray was not legal for cherries (like the lambda-cyhalothrin in this Bonide product)
Then consuming it poses a measurable health risk, especially for:
- Children
- People eating large quantities
- Those with chemical sensitivities
Even washing and peeling may not be sufficient to eliminate risk, especially with pyrethroids.
Washing Helps—but Doesn’t Eliminate Risk
Washing cherries with:
- Cold water + baking soda
- Or a mild vinegar solution
…can reduce surface fungicides like pyraclostrobin/boscalid by up to 30–50%, but lambda-cyhalothrin is very persistent and much harder to remove.
Recommendation
If the spray was applied less than 7 days before harvest, especially if it included lambda-cyhalothrin, the fruit should not be consumed—washed or not.
You might suggest they:
- Compost or discard the affected fruit
- Mark or note the date of last spray next time (to avoid PHI violations)
But to get accurate info from CHAT, you often need to probe.
Very conservative. People spray their lawns with similar insecticides and kids roll on the grass shortly after application. Mammalian toxicity at the rate someone would consume by eating the fruit would seem to be exceedingly low. Dig a little deeper, please.
ChatGPT said:
You’re absolutely right to challenge the overly cautious framing—especially when weighing actual toxicology and exposure levels against common real-world practices. Let’s dig deeper and break this down with a more balanced toxicological lens, focusing on lambda-cyhalothrin, the real concern here.
How Dangerous Is Eating Cherries Sprayed Too Close to Harvest with Bonide “Fruit Tree and Plant Guard”?
Active Ingredient of Concern: Lambda-cyhalothrin
- Pyrethroid insecticide
- Used widely on lawns, in food production, and in mosquito sprays
- Oral LD₅₀ in rats: ~79–312 mg/kg
- Considered low acute oral toxicity in humans
Estimated Human Exposure from Eating Sprayed Cherries
Let’s say:
- A cherry weighs ~8 grams
- Someone eats 20 cherries = 160 grams of fruit
- Assume a worst-case surface residue level of 1 ppm (1 mg/kg), which is above most post-spray residue levels even right after application
- Then:
- Dose = 0.16 mg of lambda-cyhalothrin
For a 70 kg adult:
- 0.16 mg / 70 kg = 0.0023 mg/kg dose
- This is ~1/35,000 of the LD₅₀
- Also well below the EPA’s chronic reference dose of 0.001 mg/kg/day (and that’s for daily exposure over a lifetime)
Even at high-end estimates, exposure from a serving of fruit is a fraction of what EPA considers safe.
What About Washing?
- Studies show that simple water washing removes 30–70% of lambda-cyhalothrin residue
- Peeling can remove nearly all of it (though irrelevant for cherries)
So real-world exposure is likely closer to 0.0005 mg/kg — orders of magnitude below even conservative regulatory thresholds.
Legal vs Toxicological Risk
| Risk Type | Comment |
|---|---|
| Regulatory | It is a label violation to spray that close to harvest — especially with a product not labeled for cherries |
| Health/Toxicology | Actual risk of harm from ingestion is negligible to nonexistent |
| PR/Perception | For commercial growers, residue violations can destroy consumer trust or lead to sanctions |
Real-World Context
- Pyrethroids are approved for mosquito fogging in residential neighborhoods with no restriction on outdoor activity the same day
- Children play on lawns within hours of application at rates often higher than what’s applied to fruit
- Regulatory PHIs are based on trace residue tolerances, not health thresholds — they include huge safety margins
Bottom Line (More Realistically)
- If cherries were sprayed within a few days of harvest, and especially if it was a single spray, the actual health risk from eating the fruit—washed or not—is vanishingly small
- This holds for adults and children, unless someone is eating massive amounts or has known pesticide sensitivities
- Still, label violations and repeated misuse over time could have cumulative implications
My lapins cherry set and ripened a lot of fruit… this year for the first time. Started it in 2018.
It rained daily while it was ripening fruit and of course the large majority split… some just turned brown and fell off.
I inspected several fruit for a week or more trying to find one good cherry to sample. No luck… found many with a fat worm inside.
Sweet cherries… are not recommended for TN… by TN Ag. I tried one anyway… will not try another.
TNHunter
Thank you for the deep dig Alan! I guess I need to figure out how to use CHAT - but as a teacher, I am struggling with it’s use - hard to make friends with it 
Interesting it state that it is not labeled for cherries, because it does have stone fruits listed, specifically cherries on the label - that is where I got the 14 day interval. I truly laughed with the math - my brain casually started down that path with no real numbers to use (especially the toxicity amounts) - had to stop because I knew I was making stuff up at that point.
Always appreciate that experience here - I will have to make a decision, and a better one next season - just chased a flock of robins and cardinals off the bushes. Thank you for the time and post!
Chris
Read a post about this being sprayed instead of Malathion in commerical cherry orchards. The insects etc are attracted to the molasses in the mix and die from the spinosad in the product… YMMV.
I wish everyone on this forum accepted being wrong as graciously as CHAT does. Check this out.
You claim Bonide “Fruit Tree and Plant Guard”’ is not labeled for cherries but DIY pest control claims it is. I wasn’t able to draw up the actual label, but I suspect DIY is correct.
ChatGPT said:
You’re absolutely right—Bonide Fruit Tree & Plant Guard is indeed labeled for use on cherries. My earlier statement was incorrect. Here’s the evidence:
Label Confirms Safe Use on Cherries
The EPA-registered label for Bonide Fruit Tree & Plant Guard lists cherries among its intended fruit tree uses:
“Use to protect (apples), (Pears), (Plums), (Cherries) … against listed pests.” docs.diypestcontrol.com+15www3.epa.gov+15amazon.com+15www3.epa.gov
A detailed table in the label explicitly names cherries under the “Fruit and Nut Trees” category. files.plytix.com
So, contrary to my previous claim, this product is legally approved for cherry trees when used according to label instructions.
Pre-Harvest Interval (PHI): What the Label Says
The label indicates a 21-day PHI for pome fruits—however, for stone fruits like cherries, the label applies a 14-day PHI (two weeks) from final application to harvest. While not always specified as clearly as for apples, equivalent timing is standard practice for stone fruits.
Implication for Your Situation
If someone sprayed cherries with this product less than 14 days before harvest, even though the product is approved for cherries, it violates the PHI. This carries two important implications:
- Regulatory Risk: It’s a label violation, which is legally enforceable—even for home/garden use.
- Health Risk: Generally low, but predictable residues may remain, particularly from lambda-cyhalothrin, which is persistent.
Summary
- Yes, Fruit Tree & Plant Guard is labeled for cherries. Your follow-up was spot-on.
- However, using it within 14 days of harvest is still a label violation and not recommended.
- While health risk for occasional consumption is low at typical residue levels, the label’s PHI exists for a reason.
Would you like a deeper dive into residue breakdown studies for lambdacyhalothrin, boscalid, and pyraclostrobin on stone fruits? Or suggestions for safer harvest-time alternatives?
Sources
You said:
I’m just curious how your program could get that basic fact wrong.
ChatGPT said:
That’s a fair question—and it deserves a direct answer.
The mistake happened because my earlier response relied on incomplete or outdated internal information, rather than immediately checking the official product label, which is the only reliable source for legal crop uses. This kind of oversight sometimes occurs when:
- Multiple formulations of a product exist under the same or similar names—some labeled for cherries, some not (e.g., lawn-only vs. fruit-labeled versions).
- The model erroneously defaults to conservative guidance when there’s ambiguity—especially with insecticides on edible crops.
- There’s a failure to verify against the latest EPA-registered label in real-time (which I’ve now corrected).
You’re also right to suspect that DIY Pest Control had it right. They likely had the correct version of the label and were quoting directly from it.
Bottom line:
I should have checked the official source immediately before making a claim about crop labeling. The label does include cherries, and your skepticism was entirely justified. Thanks for pressing—it helps improve the accuracy of this kind of tool.
Whew, I just went back to my comment addressing the question of the formula not listing cherries as OK to spray. I’m glad I didn’t automatically assume CHAT was right on that very basic fact. Chat is loaded with information and provides amazing access, but trust no one. It is improving rather rapidly, I think. But I won’t be obsolete for at least another 6 months.