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Here is what I learned about this particular pesticide, from my cousin, who is a farmer who also sometimes plants sugar beets. 1. This particular pesticide com
by turbinerneiter 6y ago
Here is what I learned about this particular pesticide, from my cousin, who is a farmer who also sometimes plants sugar beets.
1. This particular pesticide comes in the form of a pill, which is planted with the seed.
2. It is very targeted on a particular pest (german name is Rübenrüsselkäfer).
3. Without it, the whole field will be lost.
4. The replacement is a conventional broad band pesticide. It kills everything. He said that after using it once, when he walked the field he saw all kinds of dead bugs and worms - which are kinda important for the soil as well. He said "farming like this makes no sense" and stopped growing sugar beets.
The real killer however is this:
5. Sugar beets do not blossom.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- to11mtm 6y agoSoo.... Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding this. If they don't blossom, Bees will not really pick them up from the sugar beets. i.e. this isn't like using the pesticide on a flowering plant where the bees will be picking up the chemical. Interesting? It still seems there would still be some overall impact on groundwater to some level, as well as risks if the crop is planted in rotation with a different crop.
- turbinerneiter 6y agoExactly. I have no clue whether or not, and how, the bees will pick up this poison from this application. Maybe it gets diluted and never harms bees. Maybe it still gets out and to them. I tried to look for papers and the first two I found came to opposing conclusions and both of them looked sketchy af.
- nerdponx 6y agoThanks for this insight.
- hinkley 6y ago> 5. Sugar beets do not blossom. Which is fine, as long as no weeds or mushrooms grow in that entire field, and a freak rain doesn’t rinse it into the drainage ditches where weeds and mushrooms absolutely grow, in abundance.