pesticides question

 hello

i was wondering about the answer to a question and i would like to hear
your opinion.


lets say that we have a vegetable that is sprayed with a pesticide.
the pesticide says that after 15 days it gets degraded to non toxic
elements.

i think that it is a common case among the various pesticides and
fungucides.

if i pick up a vegetable 2 days before the pesticide deadline finishes
and store it in a refigerator is the pesticide going to dissolve as if
the vegetable was on the plant?

the point of my question is that i do not know what exactly the term
degrade means for the various agro chemicals.

it could mean that it is unstable anyway and disolves by its own no
matter where the vegetable is stored

or it could mean that it is dissolved by some biological or physical
factors (e.g heat or some bacteria) etc

what is your opinion and practice about this?

thank you
--



  --------------------------------------------------------------
                    Nick Apostolakis
   e-mail: nickapos@agriroot.aua.gr nickapos@noc.uoa.gr
    Web Site: http://agriroot.aua.gr/~nickapos
  --------------------------------------------------------------

 Don't take the risk. Don't use pesticides. And there are several reasons I
would advise this.

1.Monsanto/Bayer should not be trusted to be honest with the public.
They have a long history of being misleading to down right lying,
to the public, for their own commercial benefit. They don't care about your
health

2. Why bother growing your own vegetables with pesticides. You can buy
vegetables with pesticides on them in the supermarket.

3. Pesticides kill  both pests and pest predators . Thus  you are probably
killing the very insects/reptiles that can assist you eliminate them, and
they wont charge you for it.

4 Using pesticides set you on a  never ending cycle of being reliant on the
chemical companies.
When you can minimise to eradicate them with encouraging their predators, a
little care and by being  pest savvy.

Their are several key issues that you should address when deciding to use
natural methods of controlling pests:
A good book to outline all these issues and how to undertake a chemical free
veggie patch is :  Natural Control of Garden Pests, by Jackie French.
However, I'm sure google has a wealth of information.

Some very simple points anyone can undertake without being an expert are :

Be aware of how pests find plants : It is either through sight or smell.
By mixing plants together in a non-uniform manner you make it more difficult
for pests to locate plants.
Most monocultures of any variety need some form of best control. Mix the
vegies up

Introduce a pond and frogs. Frogs love pests.
If you can get a duck, you will solve all your snail problems.

Understand that pests will be more likely to attack the weak plants. With
good soil/conditions/the right plant for the right area, you will be less
likely to encounter pests.

If you have to use pesticide because it is an introduced pest attacking your
plants,  that has no natural predator in your region,
use home made/natural pesticides such as garlic spray or milk and warm water
(depends on the pest/just two examples)
This way you won't be taking any risk in eating poison. which is exactly
what pesticide is.

Personally :
I have to spray my pear and plum trees with home made pyrethrum spray or
throw woodfire ash on them on a regular basis,
as Victoria Australia has the pest 'cherry/plum slug'. An introduced pest
with no natural predator. This is the only spray I use on all my
trees/vegetables.

In the corner of my square garden beds I plant what I call the 'sacrifice'
plants as I am unable to keep ducks. This is usually a brassica of some
kind, which snails love.
The snails attack this plant as they come up from the sides of the beds and
leave the other brassica in the middle of the bed alone. A small price to
pay for pesticide free food.

Kirsty

 Liza wrote:

i would like to thank you for your answer but it does not cover my question.

the question is more of a theoretical knowledge and not a question of
what i use in my garden.
also i would like to point that i have a sufficient knowledge of the
alternative - natural ways to control pests as i have a degree in
agricultural science.

i agree with your opinion and all the reasons that you mention above but
still my question remains.

to make my question even more clear
lets take as a case study that you do not grow your own tomatoes but you
buy them from the supermarket. does your leaving them to rest for a few
days in the refigerator result to a degration of the pesticides that the
proffesional farmer has used in their production?

you see my question is a theoretical one which answers many practical
issues and is not covered by one practical solution. it needs also a
theoritical answer.
i personally believe that the answer depend of the arco-chemical and
that there are various categories that have various degration factors
but i have no proof of  that and that is why i ask at the newsgroup to
see if anoyne else has an answer better to this question.

--



  --------------------------------------------------------------
                    Nick Apostolakis
   e-mail: nickapos@agriroot.aua.gr nickapos@noc.uoa.gr
    Web Site: http://agriroot.aua.gr/~nickapos
  --------------------------------------------------------------

 Nick Apostolakis wrote:



This is a newsgroup of gardeners, not theoretical-agro-scientists. Either
accept our answers or do your own field research.

IF you have the degree you claim, that should should be a simple matter of
taking pesticide samples both before and after various periods of storage.
If tighter controls were needed, you could control the rate of pesticide
application by growing a test garden and doing the application yourself. I
don't think you have the degree you claim to have. I don't think a degreed
professional would consider polling a consumer group for highly technical
answers. I think you are lieing to us.

Long before now it should have occurred to you that residual levels of
pesticides on purchased produce are irrelevant to those who grow their own
produce without the use of pantoxic pesticides.

I apologize to the others in the group if I seem to be 'going off' about
this, but this guy keeps changing his question each time he gets an answer
and now he's whipping out an unverifiable (and suitably ambiguous) 'degree
in agricultural science'. I've had it with his bumbling troll and I am
calling BS.

 Bill wrote:


if you follow the thread you cand see that i got the answer i wanted
from more than one persons and i would like to thank them for that.
they seem to hame the knowledge to answer my question without trying to
be the wise guys like you.

call me wat you want but if you think that having a degree equals with
having a biochemical laboratory then you have a serious problem of
understanding reality.
--



  --------------------------------------------------------------
                    Nick Apostolakis
   e-mail: nickapos@agriroot.aua.gr nickapos@noc.uoa.gr
    Web Site: http://agriroot.aua.gr/~nickapos
  --------------------------------------------------------------