ARS | Publication request: Half the Price for Insect and Disease Control, Is It Possible?

Submitted to: The Buckeye
Publication Type: Popular Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: February 28, 2012
Publication Date: April 1, 2012
Citation: Zhu, H., Zondag, R., Krause, C.R., Daley, J., Lyons, B., Merrick, J., Hammersmith, D., Lee, J., Holahan, M., Shelton, M., Geary, D., Demaline, T., Harding, A., Champion, B., Losely, K., Gilson, B., Hendricks, W. 2012. Half the Price for Insect and Disease Control, Is It Possible?. The Buckeye. 23(3):15-21.

Technical Abstract: Current recommendations on pesticide labels for use in the nursery and green industry to control arthropod pests and plant diseases are vague and frequently result in excessive pesticide use. Variability in canopy densities and size, crop production in confined areas and lack of knowledge of the effect of dosage on the quality of spray application technologies all contribute to excessive pesticide use. In this report of tests from 2005 to 2010 in large scale commercial nurseries, effective spray applications with half the recommended pesticide dosage was sufficient to achieve effective pest and disease control. This field study demonstrated that growers could use their existing spray equipment to reduce pesticide and water use by 50% with a proper spray nozzle and still achieve effective pest and disease control. This finding also poses a question to legislators and chemical companies as to how application dosage labels should be modified so growers can use pesticide efficiently and effectively.